Impatience and Impulsivity
by cherry-sodas
Summary: [AU. Sequel to 'Arrogance and Aggression,' but slightly less frothy this time.]. Lucy Bennet is impatient. Dallas Winston is impulsive. Somehow, they are still surprised when these traits eventually catch up to them and bite them in their backs.
1. Chapter 1

**This slightly-less-frothy AU takes place two weeks after my first fic on this platform, 'Arrogance and 'Aggression.' You might want to read that first (and the foreword in my bio to explain what in the world I'm doing here!). If you see clichés ... don't worry. They get overturned. :)**

* * *

There was no possibility of going to sleep that night. Lucy Bennet fell all the way down on her back in a bed that creaked just a little too loudly for her taste. She let out a protracted sigh as Dallas Winston sidled up beside her, kissing her bare shoulder simply because he could. He'd been doing it every night for two weeks. By now, she was expecting it, and he couldn't just let her down.

"Glory," Lucy said. Her voice was that kind of flat you save for when you're too stunned to express yourself. "You ever considered giving up jockeying and doing _that _for a living? I think it'd pay a lot better."

"Thought about it," Dally said. "Don't think you'd like it very much. Would ya?"

"On the one hand, every woman in the world deserves to feel what you just did for me. On the other, no, I'm not sure I'd like it if the attention was off me, even for a minute. Better stick to jockeying, cowboy."

"I hate it when you call me that."

"Oh, but I love how it makes you mad."

Lucy laughed to herself, then rolled over to the nightstand and grabbed the clock. She smirked when she read the time. She knew he probably _didn't _want her to bring it up, but she was going to, anyway. It was good for him to know she was paying attention.

Dally wrapped his arm around her midsection and tried to pull her all the way back into the bed. "What're you doin', Bennet? C'mon, get back here."

"It's 12:03," Lucy said.

"So what? You told your folks you were stayin' overnight with Sadie, not me. You don't gotta be anywhere till that school of yours lets out in the afternoon."

"That's not what I mean. It's 12:03 on _November 9_."

Dally grumbled a few choice words—not for Lucy, but for the day. And to think, he'd almost forgotten it. It was his _birthday_. Worse yet, it was his eighteenth birthday, which meant he was sure to get that draft card in the mail sooner than he knew. It was almost funny, but it was that kind of funny where everything was awful. Before, he thought about getting drafted, going to war, and getting blown up all the time. It didn't sound too bad back then. His sister, Violet, would be real pissed at him for dying, but she was always pissed. It wouldn't make much of a difference after a minute or two—maybe a day. It seemed like an easy way to go, and he almost welcomed it. Of course, that was before.

Now, he had the toughest, most beautiful woman in the neighborhood in his bed every night, and dammit—she gave him something to look forward to when he woke up in the morning. The idea of turning eighteen looked pretty bleak if it meant losing his nights with Lucy. Those were worth staying alive for.

_They were?_ He could hardly believe his own thoughts. He didn't sound like himself at all, and it was bugging him something awful. Maybe it was worth it to get blown up, after all. Then he wouldn't have to feel so … it occurred to him that he didn't even know the right word to describe how he thought about feeling for Lucy Bennet.

He felt her lips on the corner of his mouth, and suddenly, he no longer wished to be blown up in the war. Yeah, this was worth dodging the draft. Better this girl's lips on and around him than a bouquet of bullet through him.

"You better not make some deal outta this," he growled. "It's just a fuckin' Tuesday."

"I know that's how _you _see it," Lucy said. "It's how I see it, too. If I had it my way, we'd stay in this room all day, back and forth like this until morning."

"What do you mean, if you had it your way? Don't ya?"

"C'mon, Dally. You know I don't."

He thought of Sadie Curtis and how disappointed she'd been two weeks earlier when she prepared a cake for Lucy's eighteenth birthday, but Lucy never got a chance to eat it because Dally had gotten in the way. Surely, now, she'd get her revenge by making it on _his _birthday—the day he always threatened they'd get killed if they ever mentioned. _Of course_ things were different now that they knew he spent all of his nights with Lucy. Getting shipped off to the jungle began to sound mighty appealing again.

Then, he looked at Lucy out of the corner of his eye, remembering how damn _good _her skin felt against his. Better than anyone he could remember (There may have been plenty he _couldn't _remember, of course, but he wasn't about to mention that in front of Lucy.). If it meant walking into this room to the guarantee of this every night, maybe he'd suffer through the rest of the day.

"What time does Sadie want you to drag my ass over there?"

Lucy laughed. "After eight."

"Gives you and me some time, don't it?"

Before Dally knew it, Lucy was moving around on the bed, suddenly hovering over his body and smirking down at him in a way he'd only ever let her do. When she took charge, it never felt any shade of wrong.

"Don't you know me at all?" she asked in a low voice. "I'm pretty good at making time."

"Oh, yeah? Then show me."

Sure enough, she showed him, and she did not disappoint.

* * *

It had been two weeks, and Lucy still wasn't sure what she and Dally were doing. Literally, of course, she understood quite perfectly. She'd been a virgin on the night of her eighteenth birthday, but she hadn't been (nor would she ever be) a saint. When Dally seemed surprised that she wasn't squeamish or nervous, she reminded him that she wasn't just reading all those old plays and books for the sake of reading them. She read the bawdy stuff because she knew it would come in handy someday. He'd made a comment on her use of the word _handy_, and she didn't say so out loud, but the fact that he said something made her fall a little bit more in love with him. He had all the physical prowess and wit as the libertines she so loved to read about. She would call him the rover in her head, after her favorite old play.

Lucy didn't know what her relationship with Dallas Winston was. Obviously, they had _something_, but she couldn't tell if it went beyond the body. When she first came into his room, she was convinced that would be the end of it. They'd quite literally bang out their differences—or similarities, depending on the way they wanted to look at them—and then, they would pretend it never happened. Lucy wouldn't even tell Sadie about it. But it had been two weeks of touching and talking, talking and touching. After the third night, she had to tell Sadie, who (after turning red with embarrassment) promptly teased her about having a new _boyfriend_.

But apart from _hematoma _(a word she heard all the time out of her nurse grandmother), Lucy thought that perhaps _boyfriend _was her least favorite word in the universe. It was juvenile, and though Lucy was only eighteen, the terms _boyfriend and girlfriend _carried connotations of inescapable childhood, something that directly contradicted the way she felt when she woke up in Dallas Winston's bed. The words also conveyed a sense of permanence and commitment, something she couldn't imagine Dallas Winston ever wanting. She knew he liked her, and for more than just what she could do with her body. But Lucy wasn't stupid. She knew that it didn't matter if he liked her because he could always find a way to up and leave her, anyway.

Of course she knew that. She knew it because she knew the same thing was true of her.

It wasn't that she didn't (albeit secretly) want to be _committed to _Dallas Winston. She did. She thought of it when she should have been trying to figure out how the hell to properly finish her math homework (Though she'd begged her parents to let her take Refresher Math for her senior year, they'd told her she better advance into trigonometry since it would show up on her transcripts when she applied for college.). She thought of it during her lunch period now that Lilly Cade was too busy grilling Sadie about her dates with Johnny to check in about Lucy and Dally. Most of all, of course, she thought of it when Dally kissed her shoulder—an odd choice, she thought, but she liked it for that reason—every night. She got a real kick out of being with him. Dally was smart, both in ways that she was and ways that she wasn't. He understood her wordplay, but where Lucy was plainly awful at devising new and creative cover stories for where she went off to every night (as she still hadn't told her parents about him), Dally could come up with convincing fictions on the spot. When she made allusions to things she was relatively sure he didn't know, he never asked her to explain … but when she did, anyway, he always at least _seemed_ interested in what she had to say. Much to her pleasant surprise, Dallas Winston wasn't a terrible companion. Depending on the hour, Lucy may even call him a good one.

She couldn't, however, just say any of that to his face. It wasn't simply that she was afraid he would laugh at her and send her on her merry way, although that fear bubbled up in her unconscious like no other. It was that she still didn't want to look weak in front of anyone, let alone the toughest person she'd ever known. Lucy liked to be in control of her feelings and hated the idea that anyone out there could mess with them. If she told Dally that she wanted something more from him, she was giving him permission to mess with her. For Lucy, there was nothing much scarier.

She exhaled deeply, exhausted from what felt like paragraphs of interiority. In truth, she had to have a laugh at herself. She'd been thinking on the questions of Dallas Winston and commitment for so long that she almost forgot she was standing in the Curtis family's backyard with her friends, who were still giggling about Sadie's most recent date with Johnny.

"You know, Lil," Sadie said, "I would think you'd be pretty grossed out hearin' about my dates with your own brother. Doesn't it bother you?"

"Not as long as he seems happy," Lilly said. "And he does. Well, happy for Johnny, anyhow."

Sadie's eyes impishly flickered over to Lucy, who was ambivalently twirling a lock of her hair around her index finger. When she felt Sadie's gaze on her, she wanted to smack it off her face. Did she not realize that the stories she told Sadie and Jane about Dally were private? Did she not realize they were for the oldest members of their group _alone_?

"I think we should take the heat off me for a minute," Sadie said, "and focus back on ole Lucy over here. Haven't heard a peep outta her since the night of her birthday. Have we?"

Suddenly, every eye in the yard turned to Lucy's face. She looked up, feeling arrant dread at the thought of sharing her stories about Dally. She knew he would hate it if she divulged too much, mostly because she knew _she _would hate it if he divulged too much about her. But it was more than that. She wanted to be with him, but she didn't want to look like the fool when (if?) he turned her away.

Was she really hoping that much? She pushed the question out of her mind. It didn't do any good to worry about it before she knew where Dally's head was. Of course, that was assuming Dally knew where his head was, a possibility that seemed, at the time, wishful at best.

"There's not much to tell," Lucy said.

"That's a damn lie!" Katie laughed. "I'd like to say I know Dally, and if he's around, there's always somethin' to tell."

"More than somethin', if you ask me," Jane Randle chimed in.

Lucy rolled her eyes. Fine. If they wanted to probe, she'd give them true answers … in her way.

"You wanna know what it's been like with Dally and me?" she asked. She could almost hear Sadie dying on the inside. If Lucy prefaced herself with something like this, it was never going to turn out well.

"Of course," Lilly said. "We've only been waiting two weeks."

"Never an imperfect enjoyment," Lucy said. "Never a disappointment."

Sadie, who was well aware of Lucy's bizarre fondness for seventeenth-century English satire, rolled her dark eyes. Leave it to Lucy to disguise her real feelings in poetry and comedy.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Lilly asked.

"If you think that's what it means, it's probably so," Katie said.

"How much thought did you put into that before you did it, Lucy?" Carrie Shepard always came prepared with the exhorting questions.

Lucy shook her head, a sly smile across her red lips. She wouldn't tell them anything they didn't need to know … which, from Lucy's point of view, was pretty much anything. She wouldn't even tell them how she felt about wishing to be Dally's girl for more than just a few hours every night and a few minutes into the next morning. _Dally's girl? _That couldn't be. More of her wanted it than didn't, but that didn't make it all right. If she said it out loud – if she even thought it again – he'd find out the truth, and he'd never look her in the eye again. Wasn't that right?

Then she thought of the way his lips twitched with an almost smile when she talked about how much she thought was left unsaid about _The Scarlet Letter_, especially how Hester Prynne's big, red _A _wasn't her real punishment for having sex, but her daughter, Pearl—a corporeal reminder and a constant responsibility. She asked him why he was looking at her that way, and he took a moment before he said something dirty. Even then, she knew he was thinking something different. He liked her. He was just never going to say it … unless she figured out a way to make him. She didn't know that two other people were trying to figure out how to do the same thing at exactly that moment.

"These are too many questions," she said. "Well, they're the wrong kinds of questions, anyway."

"What would be the right questions?" Lilly asked.

Lucy opened her mouth to say something snarky, but Sadie (who had recently appointed herself as the group's voice of reason) interrupted her. In that moment, what she said was mortifying for Lucy, who wanted nothing more than to forget the possibility of her complex feelings for a boy. Later on, however, Lucy would never stop thanking Sadie for her interruption that night.

"I think we should come out and ask her the big question," Sadie said. She was taunting, but it was for good reason, she figured.

"No big questions, please," Lucy said. "Medium questions are off limits, too. And for that matter, damn the small questions. Let's talk about something neutral. Food, for example."

"I'll go first!" Katie piped up. At last, a part of the conversation that really interested her. "I've never cared much for grape jelly. Thoughts?"

"My thoughts are we ain't talkin' about food, Katie," Sadie said. "I still haven't asked Lucy the big question, and she's gonna answer it."

"What makes you think I'm gonna answer it?" Lucy asked. Immediately, she regretted posing that as a question, for Sadie knew her far too well.

"I dare you."

The other girls whistled and gasped. Lucy's expressionless face turned into a nervous smile. Yes, Sadie knew her far too well. In the years they had been best friends, Sadie quickly realized that if she dared Lucy to do something, Lucy would always do it. Two years earlier, Sadie had dared Lucy to drink a raw egg mixed with chocolate syrup, and she'd done it without even throwing up. A little while later, she confessed that she had to fight the urge to throw up for an hour before she ran home and eventually got sick in her own toilet. She was just too nervous to puke in front of the Curtises. Regardless, that was when Sadie realized exactly how committed Lucy Bennet was to that sentence: _I dare you_.

"Fine," Lucy said, equal parts angry with Sadie and excited to answer her question. She didn't understand the contradiction, but she knew it was there. "You got me. What's the big question?"

"Are you really in love with Dally?" Sadie asked. "Do you really wanna be his girl?"

Lucy's awkward smile only became more awkward. Part of her wanted nothing more than to reach out to Sadie—to all of them, really—and tell them she thought about Dally more often than she thought about anything anymore, and she couldn't believe how long she'd been blind to how she felt. She wanted to reach out them and tell them that she was in love with him, that she wanted to be with him, and that yesterday afternoon, she couldn't even finish her lunch because she was so angry (not angry, _sad_) that he wouldn't see it that way. But she couldn't do that. Just like Dally, she had a reputation to keep up.

Then again, part of that reputation was accepting any dare that was thrown her way, and Sadie had, after all, dared her. Being vulnerable wasn't great, but refusing a dare was even worse. At least the dare could be her excuse. She took a deep breath and let out what she had been keeping in.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I think … well, I know … yeah. Yeah, I guess that's true. Both of those things… I guess they're true."

Jane clasped her hands together as though she hadn't seen it coming (though of course she had). Lilly squeaked. Katie told her Lilly sounded like a mouse. And Sadie just stared blankly at Lucy, waiting for her to say more. She knew where she was going with these questions (and out in the front yard, so did Sodapop—they were twins, after all). She just needed Lucy to play ball for a few seconds longer.

"But it doesn't matter," Lucy quickly added. "I know whatever this is, it's not going to last. It can't."

Sadie looked at her like she knew something Lucy didn't. Lucy frowned and leaned forward to make sure Sadie knew who was in charge. When Sadie noticed this, she laughed a little under her breath. If only Lucy knew how easy it was for Sadie to get the drop on her. It was the one thing she hadn't thought over when she decided to have a best friend.

"What are you playing at?" Lucy asked.

But Sadie said nothing. Not yet. She would figure it out soon enough. After all, if the plan played out the way she and Soda had already figured, Lucy was the kingpin.

* * *

"So, every night with Lucy, huh?"

Dally looked up to see that Soda was asking him the question he least wanted to answer. He rolled his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't have anything to say about Lucy. For as much as he thought about her (as much as he had been thinking about her for months), he'd never say anything about her out loud. That would make him look weak for her. Somewhere, down inside himself, he knew he _was _weak for her. He'd figured it out when he realized he got a kick out of lying next to her while she was taking notes in those books of hers. Every now and then, she'd pipe up and say something like, "Why would they use this word and not a different one? Can't be a coincidence." He wasn't exactly sure what she meant by any of that, but she was sure funny to watch. Over the years, he'd seen Ponyboy read all the time, only when Pony was reading, he was always dead quiet. Lucy was the only loud reader he'd ever met—maybe the only loud reader in the world. Some part of him got a kick out of that. That didn't mean Soda and the others got to know the truth.

He wasn't even sure he wanted _Lucy _to know the truth, and she was the one rolling around in his bed and in his head every night. Everyday, Lucy got closer to getting her responses from colleges (She reminded him once, sometimes twice an hour.). He figured she'd get into one of those fancy schools she was always going on about, pack up, and forget she ever knew him. And if she did, well, that was good for him. He didn't need her, anyway.

He lit up a cigarette and rolled his eyes again. It didn't do any good to worry about something that hadn't even happened. He was starting to sound like… well; he was starting to sound like _Lucy_. Either way, he wasn't going to tell her the truth—that if she got into that fancy Pennsylvania school she was always talking about, he'd want her to stay because he kind of liked being around her. She'd just laugh at him, and he'd be left standing there by himself. It wasn't that he couldn't handle it if she left. He'd been alone all his life, and whether or not she was there didn't make any real lick of difference, he supposed. It was that if he told her the truth, then she'd just … know it. She'd always know it, and it wouldn't be his to keep close to the vest anymore.

"Dally, I asked you a question," Soda broke into his silence. Damn. Had Soda always been this big a pain in the ass, or was it just tonight?

"I've been seein' Lucy a lot," Dally said. "But that's all I'm gonna say."

"That's a damn shame," Steve said. "Way she was hangin' on you when you walked in here tonight, we figured you'd have a ton to say."

"I could. But do you really want me to tell ya in front of the kid?" He tipped his head in Pony's direction.

Ponyboy blushed with embarrassment and groused at the same time.

"I ain't a kid," he said. "I know what you and Lucy been doin'."

"Don't mean you're ready to talk about it," Two-Bit reminded him. "Remember when we was watchin' that movie, and the girl said somethin' about putting your lips together to blow? Thought you about died."

Ponyboy turned a deeper shade of red, almost muttered a few choice words for Two-Bit (an opportunity Darry quickly killed off by shooting him a look). Soda stepped forward, remembering Sadie's instructions, and tried to get more out of Dally. He didn't know why she thought he could be the one to break him, since he and Dally had never been particularly close. But she was Sadie, the mastermind of all the pranks and plots they'd pulled as twins, and he had to respect that.

"I ain't askin' you to take a picture for me," Soda said. "I just wanna know if ya like her."

Dally stared at him blankly. Did Soda really think he was going to answer that question? Inside of himself, he knew the answer. Yeah, of course he liked her. She was pretty, and always understood what he meant. That didn't mean the boys got to know about it. It was bad enough Lucy already knew some of it.

"Of course he likes her," Two-Bit said. "Who wouldn't like Lucy?"

"Lotsa people, man," Dally said. "She's kinda mean."

"Ain't that why you like her, though?"

Dally nearly swallowed his tongue. It would have been easy to answer Two-Bit's quick question, but he was smarter than that. Finally, a different voice drew him out of his thoughts.

"C'mon, Dally," Johnny said. "You know we ain't gonna care if you like Lucy. Besides, we already know you do. Why's it matter if you just say it?"

Dally took a drag and thought about what Johnny was asking him. Why did it matter if he just said it? He'd never admitted to really liking a girl before. Maybe that was because he never quite had. He'd been with a good amount of them, and he liked the way they all looked (at least at the time he was with them). With Lucy, it was that he looked forward to the things she might say or do that night. He was getting good at predicting her next move, too. He was getting to know her, whether he liked it or not. But what made him think he deserved that? What made him think she was getting a kick out of being around him, too?

"I don't know, Johnny," he said. "Don't seem worth it. I don't know where she's at, so it don't seem worth it."

"But ain't that the best way to find out where she's at?"

Why was Sodapop Curtis asking him all these questions? Had Lucy put him up to this? No, of course it wasn't Lucy. Dally could tell just by looking at Lucy that she didn't need to know how he thought about her. No, this was a plot. Between the Curtis twins, only one of them could stir up a good plot, and it wasn't Soda.

"What?" Dally asked.

"Ain't that the best way to find out what Lucy thinks?" he asked. "To tell her what you think and then ask her what she does?"

"How can I do that, man? I don't even know what I think."

He smirked a little, but only to himself. It reminded him of some of that philosophy bullshit Lucy had taught him about in the weeks before her eighteenth birthday. She'd probably like to hear him say that. Maybe he'd mention it later that night … if there were a later that night; he quickly revised his own thoughts. After the first night he spent with Lucy, he told himself never to just think she'd come back for the next one, guaranteed. She was trickier than that.

And yet, she _did _keep coming back for the next one and the one after that, too. What was that? What was she trying to get out of him?

"I think ya do know," Soda said.

"Could you please shut the hell up? I ain't gonna tell you anything."

"I dare you."

In that second, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the atmosphere. It wasn't just that Dallas Winston had been challenged. It was that _Sodapop Curtis _was his challenger. The two had never been particularly close—it was, thanks to his personal doing, damn near impossible to be close to Dally—but they were also thought to be the other's antithesis. Where Soda was kindly gregarious, Dally was coldly brazen; where Soda was movie-star handsome, Dally always looked fresh from the fight; where Soda felt no shame in opening up and pouring his whole heart out of his body, Dally went to extremes trying to hide the fact that he had a heart at all. Who did Soda think he was, trying to get a rise out of Dally like that? It pissed him off … and yet; he had to admire the kid's guts. Had it been another night, he might have had to curb the instinct to beat the tar out of Soda for talking to him like that. But there was something on Soda's face that just plain … amused him. For some reason, he decided to play along.

Maybe it was that he was looking for an excuse to play along, and a dare was a decent one. He didn't spend much more time on that thought, but it wasn't because it was untrue.

"You dare me?" he asked.

"Yeah," Soda said, his voice shaking a little, but not enough to get him to stop talking. "Yeah, I dare you. D'you _like _Lucy?"

It was the emphasis Soda had put on that word that bothered Dally something awful. _Like_. You couldn't just _like _Lucy Bennet. It wasn't a strong word, and if there was one thing Lucy hated, it was weak words. Dally knew that from watching her write her poems. She'd get pissed if she couldn't think of a word stronger than _good _or _bad_. When Dally asked her why the fuck it mattered, weren't words just words, she said that feeling something didn't count unless it was all the way. He knew she wouldn't want to just be _liked_. And yet, he didn't think he could give her what she wanted. He could try—he'd tried before, just not with a girl—but it never worked. He couldn't figure it out. At least, he didn't think he could.

"Lucy's a pretty tuff broad," Dally finally said. "If I'm gonna spend every night with a broad, she ain't a bad choice."

Most of the gang was surprised. Out of Dally, that was almost as good as a declaration of undying love. Soda smiled to himself, thinking of Sadie's instructions again. If their timeline had worked out the way they planned (Sadie was fairly certain it would.), the girls would be making their way to the front yard in about …

He turned his head, and there were the girls. Lucy, Sadie, and Jane were leading the troops, while Lilly, Katie, and Carrie trailed behind them, nervously giggling. Yes, this was exactly what Sadie had said would happen. Quietly, he admonished himself for all the times when he was a kid and complained that he and Sadie had to share a birthday cake. He'd never been prouder to be a twin.

Dally moved toward Lucy, almost unaware of what he was doing. She was beaming up at him like she had a trick up her sleeve, and he hoped she did. As he was quickly discovering, Lucy's tricks were some of the best in the world.

"Hey," he said. "You ready to get outta here?"

"I know you are," Lucy said.

"I was ready to go before we ever left. You know I don't wanna be eighteen. These bums can't seem to stop remindin' me of it."

He gestured to the group of six guys behind him. Soda looked at Lucy and gave her a tiny wave. She narrowed her eyes at him. She should have known he was in on this plot the whole time.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "You know what you're gonna do now that you're eighteen?"

"I'm gonna get shipped off to the jungle."

"Maybe not. 'Cause you're gonna marry me. 'Cause I dare you."

To the surprise of none, especially not himself, there was nothing Dally wanted more than for the ground to open up and take him right down in it. As far as he could tell, there was only one reason Lucy Bennet would be asking him to marry her, and he wasn't itching to hear it.

* * *

**I have an agenda here, and it's not as … well, it's not as cliché as it looks! I'm not going to spoil the entire plot here, but this isn't going exactly where you think it is. Let's just say Lucy's rationale for that question (or, uh, demand…) isn't incredibly strong. **

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**, obviously. I reference Aphra Behn's comedy, **_**The Rover**_**, and her poem, "The Disappointment," John Wilmot's "Imperfect Enjoyment," and Nathaniel Hawthorne's **_**The Scarlet Letter**_**, which are all in the public domain, but I wouldn't own those, either.**


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy stared daggers at Dally, waiting for him to say something—anything. She knew this was how he would react, but it didn't make it any easier to stand there and wait for him to just _move already_. It was in that moment that her heart grew sick with anxiety. This was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for (or dreading … or both). Dally was going to get pissed at her in front of everyone they knew, and she was going to have to live with that. She was going to have to live with her new reputation the girl dumb enough to open up to Dallas Winston.

_Open up to Dallas Winston_? She was already mitigating the horror. No, Lucy Bennet would go down in history as the girl dumb enough to _propose to Dallas Winston_, as though he would do anything but turn on his heel and forget she ever existed.

But that wasn't what happened. After what felt like years of waiting for him to say anything, Dally reached out, pulled her closer to him so that no one else could hear them (at least, no one else could hear them exceptionally well), and he asked her what he needed to ask her.

"Are you knocked up?"

Lucy snorted. "Please."

"I'm serious. If you're knocked up, then I know it ain't mine."

"I'm not knocked up. Really, I'm not."

She spoke with a surprising sum of confidence for a woman who had only lost her virginity two weeks earlier and wasn't sure her ... she struggled for the word and eventually happened on _person_ … always put the condom on correctly. Either way, she felt sure she was telling him the truth. She didn't _feel _knocked up, anyway. She always thought she'd be able to feel that.

"Better fuckin' not be," Dally said, and Lucy nodded in agreement. She really couldn't think of anything much worse.

"But if you ain't knocked up," he continued, "why are you askin' me to marry you? Huh?"

Lucy exhaled, annoyed. She knew she'd have to tell the story, but she also knew that telling the story would make her look crazy. She waved Sadie over to the conversation, who made eye contact with Soda, and the twins joined them.

"Sadie, Dally wants to know why I just came out here and demanded that he marry me," Lucy said.

"Not my story to tell," Sadie said. "You're the one who did it. I just stood by and watched."

"Yes, but without you …"

"Without me, the world would be an awful place. Everyone knows this. It's still not my story. Go on. Maybe I'll chime in from time to time. I'm awful proud."

She and Soda shot each other that knowing twin smile that Lucy, as an only child who always wished Sadie could have been _her _twin, always envied. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes to relay the story back to Dally, fearing she would sound crazier than she felt.

"They kept pestering me about whether or not I …" she swallowed hard before she continued, "_liked _you, and then Sadie dared me to answer. So I said …"

She stopped, and Dally nodded. She did not need to finish her statement. Both of them already knew the answer—they were just too obstinate to give it.

"Well, then, she dared me to tell you to your face," Lucy continued, "and I said that wasn't much of a dare."

"Sealed her own fate, just like I knew she would," Sadie said in a tone so gleefully self-congratulatory that Lucy had to admire it. Sneaky Sadie was one of her favorite versions of Sadie, after all, even if she was getting the short end of the stick.

"So, then, she said she'd raise me," Lucy said. "I had to tell you I …"

Again, she said nothing, and again, Dally nodded. She didn't need to say it. It wasn't hard for him to see. Dallas Winston didn't read like Lucy Bennet did (That wasn't to say he'd never read anything.), but he was far from a stupid man.

"I had to tell you that, and then I had to ask you to marry me," Lucy finished; shutting her eyes tightly once more. "Because Sadie dared me, and I've never turned down a dare."

She opened her eyes for this last part and was shocked to see that Dally didn't look like he wanted to kill her. He didn't look too thrilled with what she was saying (and he wasn't, but he was even less thrilled with what he was thinking); yet, he didn't look like he was going to run away. He just stood there, a blank expression on his face. Maybe it was that proverbial calm before the storm. Lucy still looked him in the eye—his gaze on her was always so intense—and said what she needed to say.

"I've never turned down a dare," she said, "and it's my understanding that you never have, either."

Dally laughed a little, impressed with Bennet's guts. He knew very well that she had never turned down a dare. He thought back to the summer they were fifteen years old, and Sadie had dared Lucy to stand up during a showing of _Hud _and loudly declare that she intended to marry Paul Newman … something Lucy, without hesitation, got up and did. It wasn't much of a risky dare (though she did get banned from the Dingo for about two months for disturbing the peace), but Dally thought back to it a few times after it happened. There was something kind of tough about a broad who would just stand up and take anything that got thrown at her. If she was willing to stand up and propose to a movie star who couldn't hear her, who knew what else she could make herself do?

Whether or not he had ever turned down a dare … well, that was more implicit. It wasn't that he had ever _turned down _a dare. It was that no one ever had to dare him in the first place. He was always acting of his own accord. He made himself do things because he thought they might feel like … something … when he did them. That was always worth the risk—trying to see how it would feel or if it even would. When he thought about it (and he did think about it, the whole time Lucy was telling him this otherwise boring story about Sadie and the others), Dally could really only remember being dared to do something three times in his whole life: His buddy in the Bronx dared him to jump an older kid in the park when he was ten, leading to his first arrest, Sodapop had dared him to talk about Lucy, and now, Lucy had dared him to marry her. He hadn't turned down either of the dares before hers. What made him think he could stop now? It was a ridiculous dare, but wasn't that what made it a good one? And after all, he couldn't end Bennet's streak of dares end like this.

She was staring at him. How long had she been staring at him? It didn't matter. He nodded his head once and said, "OK."

Lucy, Sadie, and Soda all appeared different shades of shocked. It was Lucy the Impatient who spoke first, to the surprise of none around her.

"OK?" she asked. "What?"

"OK," he said. "You dared me, so I guess I don't really got much of a choice."

Lucy opened her mouth to respond, but Sadie cut in, equal parts horrified and intrigued.

"Wait," she said. "Wait just a hot minute."

"Sadie?" Soda asked. "Was that part of the plan?"

"Of course it wasn't part of the plan. Does it look like this was part of the plan?"

Dally fixed his eyes on Sadie, still not quite angry but clearly getting there. Her breath hitched, and she immediately wished it hadn't. Dally had mostly left her alone all her life, but he had such a look about him. It was hard not to react even if Sadie knew, as Soda's twin sister, he wouldn't come near her.

"What fuckin' plan, kid?" he asked.

Thankfully, Soda felt the vibes Sadie was trying to transfer to him. He stepped forward and spoke for his twin the best way he knew how (which, much to Sadie's pleasure, was always accurate).

"I was gonna get you to say you liked Lucy," he explained. "And Sadie was gonna get Lucy to say the same thing, 'cept somehow, she's more stubborn than you, so she knew it was gonna take her a little more than that. So she dared her to do something big and stupid."

"We just wanted you to say you gave a damn about each other," Sadie said. "We thought if Lucy asked you to marry her, you'd yell at her, she'd yell at you, and you'd come to your senses after a little while of that. Figured you'd come to some sort of compromise or somethin'."

Soda nodded. "We never thought you'd get _really married _on a dare."

Lucy and Dally looked back and forth at one another, trying their best to hear what the other was thinking. Of course, Lucy's heart was beating too loudly with nerves, and Dally was thinking up ways he could get the hell out of this one and ways he could stay in it all at the same time. He couldn't just marry this broad … but she'd dared him, and he didn't want to be the reason she got labeled chicken. If other broads knew he was _married_, they'd never give him the time of day (or night) … but he didn't have to tell anybody he married Bennet if it was all for a dare. Besides, he didn't need to _stay _married to her in order for her dare to count … but would it really be so awful to know he'd have a woman in his bed every night, even if it was always the same one? Lucy's smooth voice cut into his thoughts, and he couldn't help but want to listen to her instead.

"You know," she said, "you don't have to do this. Married men aren't exempt from the war anymore, not since August, so you might still have to go… unless I got knocked up, in which case …"

"Jungles of 'Nam look pretty fuckin' good," Dally said.

"Yeah."

Sadie stood by, amazed by what she was seeing and hearing before her. It wasn't only that Dally was agreeing to marry Lucy on a dare. It was also that Lucy was willing to give up a dare so that Dally didn't have to put himself in that very un-Dally position of being somebody's (legal) husband. If she were really willing to push all that aside for Dallas Winston, then she must have loved him. Did she see that for herself? Or would Sadie and Jane and the others have to tell her again?

On the other side of the huddle, Soda watched Lucy and Dally with a similar amazement. He knew that Sadie would be impressed that Lucy would even consider giving up a dare for somebody else, but he was more confused by Dally. He didn't know as much about Dally as he probably should have, being in the same gang and all … then again, Dally didn't really share much that wasn't some bull about violence, the rodeo, or both. Still, there he was, looking at Lucy Bennet like he'd put his reputation on the line just so that she could keep her streak of dares running strong. It was so unlike Dally that Soda briefly considered the realistic possibility of pod people, like in that movie, _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_. But when Dally winked at Lucy like he knew something she didn't, Soda knew it had to be him. But how? How was this Dallas Winston? Why would he want to get hitched to some girl he'd been fooling around with for just two weeks?

"You don't have to agree to this," Lucy said, though there was something in her voice that hoped he still would. "I can't believe I even accepted the dare."

"Yeah, you can," Dally said.

"You're right. I can."

Soda and Sadie looked at each other, their furrowed brows mirroring one another. They thought maybe (and only maybe) the proposal would have forced Dally to admit that he wanted to keep seeing Lucy, but for the love of God, please don't make him get married. What was this? What reason did Dally have to agree to Lucy's question? It wasn't until a very long time after that Sadie and Soda realized that there was no reason—Dally just felt like saying yes that day in the hopes that it would make for a good story.

Of course, if Dally was going to do this—_this_—for Lucy Bennet's reputation, she was going to do something for his.

"If I marry you," he said, "you ain't allowed to tell anybody I did it."

"Soda and Sadie are standing right here," Lucy said.

"Forget about them. They ain't sayin' nothin'. They know one of us could kill 'em. Easy."

Soda and Sadie both shrugged their shoulders and nodded, affirmative. It wasn't a pretty truth, but it would be pretty hard to win in a real fight with either Lucy Bennet or Dallas Winston, especially if they were in a fighting mood (which they almost always were).

"We'll need witnesses," Lucy said. "Soda and Sadie aren't eighteen, so it can't be them."

"Two-Bit owes me a couple of fuckin' favors. So does Shepard."

"Do you get to screw around with other girls?"

"I get to do whatever I want."

Somewhere inside of him, a quiet yet deep voice was roaring, _But you wouldn't do that to her_. He made that voice shut the hell up. What was it, anyway, and why did it keep talking at him? He wished it would shut up. It was ruining everything. It was ruining everything, and now, he was going to marry an entire person just so she could say she'd accepted a dare.

"They make you get your blood tested here, you know," Lucy said. "It's to make sure neither of us is going to die the way Lord Byron did."

Dally gave her that look where she could tell he wanted to know what she meant, but he wouldn't be so weak as to ask it.

"Syphilis," she said. "He died of syphilis. Well, technically, it was a fever, and they think he relapsed from malaria, but the history of syphilis can't have helped …"

"Yeah, yeah, I really don't care," Dally interrupted her, so she bit her tongue.

"About Lord Byron or the blood tests? The syphilis?"

"I don't care about none of it."

Before Lucy could reply, Soda jumped in the middle of her and Dally, looking more confused than Lucy had ever seen him look, and she'd watched him try to read the first page of _Finnegans Wake _when Ponyboy left it on the couch.

"Sorry," he said, "but what's going on?"

"Come on, kid," Dally said. "You're dumb, but you ain't stupid. I'm gonna marry Bennet, thanks to you and your sister over there."

Soda turned to look at Sadie, who was burying her face in her hands. She couldn't believe what she had done. After all these years, she was so sure she knew Lucy well enough so that she'd take the first dare and negotiate down. This was an overcorrection. There was no way this could work out. One of them would be carried out in a bag within two months, and it was going to be Dally. As much as Sadie wanted Lucy to have him if she wanted him, she always assumed that they would mess around until Lucy graduated and moved on. It would be good for her, but it would be temporary. Was that still the case? Would they sign a piece of paper just to sign a different one some odd days later? Of course they would. Neither of them wanted to be tied to anything, especially not anything that made them look soft.

But when Sadie saw the looks in their eyes that night, she wasn't so sure anymore. She grumbled, "Oh, holy shit …" and walked away, pulling Soda along with her.

Lucy's eyes flickered from the twins back to Dally, who was trying very hard not to smile at her. She noticed, but she'd never say a damn thing to him about it. She knew how much his cool mattered to him because it mattered to her. Jane had been right. They were too similar.

"You know it doesn't matter if we don't tell them," she said. "Sadie's not capable of keeping secrets from Darry, and Darry's gonna get really annoyed."

"I don't care. Do you not … I'm sorry, do you not understand? I don't care."

"You really wanna do this?"

"Of course I fuckin' don't. But ya got dared, and I don't wanna be the one who makes ya look yellow."

"If I say thank you, will you just take it? Or will you say something rude?"

"Better keep your mouth shut 'fore I change my mind and let you look like a coward."

They shared a look that said enough, though neither of them could form their thoughts into words, even silently. Lucy turned in on herself, wondering what the hell she had just asked Dallas Winston to do—what she had just agreed to. She knew how she felt about him, but she assumed he would break her heart sooner rather than later. If she were really going to do this—marry him as part of a dare—she would have to be the one to initiate the divorce. She'd have to. If she waited and let him do it, she'd hurt forever, which at the time hardly felt hyperbolic. It wasn't something she liked, but it was something she knew. She felt far deeper than she let on.

"All right," Lucy said. "Then it's settled. You're gonna marry me, but I'm gonna divorce you."

Dally really was almost smiling now. It had to be the adrenaline. There was something about doing things he shouldn't do (like marrying Lucy Bennet on his eighteenth birthday for no reason other than, "She's good lookin', she dared me, and I'm no chicken") that got him to feel almost happy. Then again, maybe he just liked her. But she didn't need to know that for sure, not even if he was going to marry her.

"We'll see about that," he said.

"What? You think you're gonna divorce me?"

Dally didn't say anything, and it wasn't until a long time afterward that either he or Lucy understood why.

* * *

They were married by Thursday afternoon, signing the papers just minutes after the blood tests confirmed that they weren't related, nor would they (probably) die like Lord Byron. The clerks at city hall were—to say the least—confused to see Dallas Winston walk in wanting to marry a pretty girl who seemed nice enough, and if they could have turned him away, they would have. Alas, both parties were of age, appeared to be sober, and in agreement. They were here to get married.

By request, the wedding (if one could call it that, which Lucy never would) went as quickly as possible. But even in that time, the judge kept looking at Lucy Bennet, wondering what in the world she must be mixed up in to be marrying this hood. It was the oddest thing he'd seen all week. For a girl who looked nice enough, she kept staring up at Dallas Winston like he could have been a good guy—like this was something she really wanted to do, not a reckless decision she made because she was old enough to make it now. The judge wondered if Lucy Bennet knew she was looking at Dallas Winston that way. When he pronounced them "man and wife," and she looked at her new husband and said, "Don't you ever use this against me," the judge figured she had no idea.

Two-Bit, who had signed as a witness (His obliviousness to Lucy's recent, albeit brief, crush on him was very helpful in the completion of Sadie and Soda's dare.), started to sing, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me," but Dally swore at him until he shut up. Dally did make a point of trying to stick his tongue down Bennet's throat as far as it would go, just to see what the judge would do. Unfortunately, the judge kept quiet; fortunately, he discovered Bennet's mouth was far from shallow.

Lucy noticed that Dally was looking at her with something she'd never seen before behind his eyes. She almost called his bluff, but she figured she'd save it for another day. She kissed him again, and then held his face close to hers. He was almost going to ask her what the hell she was doing, but she beat him to the punch:

"So, when do you want to get that divorce?"

"What?"

"The divorce. You didn't actually want to stay married to me. Did you?"

* * *

"You _wanted_ to stay married to me?"

They were outside of City Hall, Two-Bit and Shepard had gone home, and Lucy was yelling. This was unusual, as Lucy almost never yelled. She talked a lot, she talked fast, and she talked sternly, but she almost never _yelled_. Dally was surprised by how much her yelling upset him. Of course, he thought, he wasn't upset. It just bothered him. Her voice was awfully shrill when it got up that high, and he liked it better when she was quiet and making out with him. Didn't he? Yes, of course he did. That was how he liked all girls.

"Calm down, will ya?" he asked. "I didn't say I wanted to be married to ya forever. You know I don't."

Lucy felt her heart start to break, though she quickly pulled herself together. She thought she folded her arms against her chest in defiance so that he knew how annoyed he was making her. Yet, the only thing he noticed was how she'd folded her arms under her breasts and pushed them up. That had to have been one of those on-purpose accidents, he laughed to himself.

"Then what are you trying to…?"

"Look, this dare is stupid. You know it's stupid, so don't play like you don't. But ain't it more fun if we drag it out?"

Her expression began to soften a bit, but she was sure to harden it again. Dally, of course, noticed it, and if she wasn't bugging him so much (That was it. She was bugging him.), he might have thought she looked cute. She wrinkled up her nose, and Dally almost wondered if her nose had always been that small and drawn up like that. Of course, he didn't, as that would have been too specific.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked.

"Ah, come on. I know you dig. You're doin' it now. Draggin' it out. Delayin'.

A real smile crept across Lucy's face. She was sure pretty when she was being Lucy.

"Am I so obvious?" she joked.

"You ain't subtle. Think about it, Bennet."

"If we stay married…"

"The twins gotta live with the shit they started. Make 'em see how bad they fucked up."

Lucy nodded, feeling devious for a moment and then remembering her truth. She was in love with Dallas Winston—or, at least, she believed she was. If she weren't in love with him, she would have told Sadie to fuck off and give her a different dare. More parts of her than not wanted to stay married to him on the off chance he might realize that she was good for more than just sex. But he'd never abide that. Ostensibly, she'd stay married to him to egg on Sadie and Soda and the others, and she'd try to fight off this terrible love for him that gnawed at her from the inside out. Once she figured he'd had enough, she'd still have to be the one to ask for the divorce, but it wouldn't be because she wanted one. It would be because she didn't.

"Your plan sounds like it should be on television or something," Lucy said. "It doesn't sound real."

"Well, maybe I should be on television, then."

"No, it'd drive you crazy. There's laws about what you can't say on television, and I hear you use all those words over and over every night."

He smirked, almost like he was proud to have as dirty a mouth as he did. From Lucy's perspective (her nighttime perspective, anyway), he should be proud of it. It was good for a lot more than he got credit. She nearly passed out just thinking about it.

"Speakin' of," Dally said, ogling Lucy like she was a real bride, "I hear there's a word for what a guy's supposed to do for his wife after he marries her."

Lucy's skin turned pink and tingly, but she ignored it. It didn't matter that every time she went to bed with Dally, she learned something new. It didn't matter that the best part of any evening between them was when he stripped off his shirt to reveal an irksomely toned physique. If he was going to commit to this prank of a marriage, then he was going to commit with all of his body and what, she only partially joked, was left of his soul.

"_Consummation_," Lucy said. "The word you're looking for is _consummation_."

"Naw, I'm pretty sure I know the word I'm looking for, and it's got way less letters than whatever you just said."

"They're synonyms."

"Huh? Cinnamon?"

"No, they're words that mean … never mind."

"What are they?"

That silly three-word question almost rattled Lucy to the core. Two months earlier, she would have figured Dallas Winston for a guy who'd do plenty of stupid things, but never get married on a dare. And yet, there they were, squabbling on their (legal) wedding day as they squabbled the first day they met on the high school's front lawn more than three years before. Two months earlier, she _especially _wouldn't have figured Dallas Winston for the kind of guy who would ask his wife (his wife born out of an obstinate dare, that was all that it was, she had to keep reminding herself of that, he did not love her) questions about the English language. Lucy coughed a little and replied, still stunned that he would even want to hear (or pretend to want to hear).

"Synonyms are two words that mean a similar thing," she said. "So, like …"

"Like _twins _and _idiots_."

_No_.

"Yeah."

Dally came around to her side and wrapped his arm around her waist, trying to pull her in the direction of the nearest bedroom. She shook her head and smirked at him like she knew something he didn't (Lucy knew _plenty _he didn't, as she would specify.), which confused him. Normally, she was just as eager to go upstairs as he was. He cocked his eyebrows at her and asked what she was making that face for.

"If we're gonna drag this out," she said, "I have to tell my parents."

Part of the reason she said that was because for her, it was true. While she felt relatively comfortable sneaking around and making it with Dallas Winston behind her parents' backs, she knew she'd never be comfortable being secretly married. But another part of that reason—a slightly larger and more devious part—said it because she wanted to see how white he would turn. She had to stifle a laugh when she saw he was about the color of snow on Christmas in Vermont.

"You ain't serious," he said in the lowest voice she'd ever heard him use.

"I am."

"You said if I did this, then you wouldn't tell nobody."

"I suppose I did. But think about it. Are Sadie and Soda going to keep this a secret? Is Two-Bit? Did you or did you not ask _Tim Shepard _to be your second witness? If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were screwing this up for yourself on purpose."

A little bit of color returned to his face. He wasn't proud of it, but it was true.

"I have to tell my parents," Lucy repeated. "I live in their house, we get along, and I have to tell them. I didn't say you needed to come with me."

For a moment, Dally was relieved. She wasn't going to parade him around like he was something to be won … like he was the kind of guy a girl like Bennet could be proud of. That sounded like a terrible time, and he didn't want a single part of it.

And yet, it would be awful fun to torture Bennet's parents like that. Maybe that would get him feeling more like himself again, not like that guy who was willing to marry somebody for the hell of it (He liked her enough, but that wouldn't last. It never did). She took off without him, but he caught up to her. After all, it was sure to be a disaster, and that was the one thing he was good at.

* * *

**So, there you go. These idiots got married on a dare. Thanks "I'll Be Your Mirror," we know **_**somehow **_**it manages to work out … but how? Good thing I have (most of) the answers. Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. By the way, if you're not familiar with James Joyce's **_**Finnegans Wake**_**, which I reference in this chapter, Google, "First page of **_**Finnegans Wake**_**." It's … interesting (and even more interesting to try to picture Sodapop Curtis trying to read it). **


	3. Chapter 3

On their way to the Bennet house, Dally walked about three steps behind Lucy. Part of her wanted to turn around and tell him to walk a little faster so she could tell him a little bit about her parents (if he was really going to come in with her), but she realized none of it mattered. None of it mattered to him, anyway. He was only coming inside with her to make her look foolish in front of them. He didn't care who they were. He didn't care that she adored her father beyond words, nor did he care that while she loved her mother, her nerves set Lucy's nerves on edge as well. It wasn't like she'd ever tell Dallas Winston that she had a problem with nerves, even if he was married to her. Their marriage was only legal, and she didn't want to look weak in front of him. She didn't want to look weak in front of anybody, though to look weak in front of him sounded like about the worst thing she could do.

When she got up to her front porch (How much longer would it still be her front porch?), she turned around and looked at Dally for the first time in minutes. He still stood three steps behind her. Though she glared at him, he almost joyfully smirked up at her. For all either of them knew, he was only there to make things worse.

"You don't have to come inside, you know," Lucy said. It was somewhere in between a command and a suggestion.

"I don't gotta do anything," Dally said. "Let's get that straight."

"Do you even _want_ to come inside?"

"Depends on where you're talkin'."

Lucy rolled her eyes and pulled her house key out from her bra. Dally snickered under his breath to watch her do that. Even when she wasn't trying to be cute, she was still cute. He wondered how many mentions of Lucy's bras alone he could sneak in when he met her folks. If he'd thought about that phrase for a second longer (_meeting her folks_), he probably would have gritted his teeth and ran the other way, asking Lucy for that divorce over his shoulder and going to find someone else—someone who didn't make him _think _so much. But he didn't have time to run away. Lucy opened the door, walked inside, and, in the briefest moment of pure impulse, he trailed behind her.

A middle-aged man in a T-shirt and jeans sat on the couch, taking notes in a big paperback that sat on his lap. His hair was black and gray, and he wore a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses. When he heard Lucy come inside, he closed his book and stood up to meet her, a welcoming smile on his face that Dally was never sure fathers could have when they saw their children.

"Lucy!" he said. "I was getting worried about you."

"Hi, Dad," she said. She took a look at the book he was reading. "I didn't know you were teaching _North and South _this semester."

"I'm not. It's for next semester. I'm just getting myself all prepared. Besides, I know how much you love Margaret and Thornton."

"Not as much as Elizabeth and Darcy, but they do hold a special place."

Dr. Bennet smiled warmly at his daughter, but that happy expression quickly shifted into strange confusion. He saw the tall, tough-looking boy three steps behind her and furrowed his brow. Something about the boy looked familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. Then he remembered. This was the boy they'd hauled in for breaking the windows at Lucy's school. What was that boy doing at the Bennet house? Awkwardly, he moved his gaze back toward Lucy.

"Lucy," he said. "I got a call from your school secretary today."

"Really?" Lucy asked, bored already. "What did she say?"

"She said you skipped all of your classes after lunch."

He looked toward Dally again, but Dally was careful not to make eye contact. In fact, he was sure he would drop dead then and there. Parents had never been his strong suit, not even when he was born to a couple of them.

"Oh," Lucy said. "Well, I did. She's not mistaken. It's a good thing, too. It means she must be pretty decent at her job, so she'll get to keep it until she gets pregnant or old. Not both. Never both. Is both even possible?"

"Dear, you're rambling again."

Lucy bit her tongue, and Dally looked at her, more confused than he'd ever been. He'd heard Lucy talk at length about plenty of things he didn't understand, but even when she went on forever, she usually sounded calm and sure of herself. In front of her father, Lucy was a nervous wreck. Dally really hated to see her that way. It wasn't that she was less attractive when she looked nervous. It was … no, that had to be it. It had to be that she was less attractive when she looked nervous. She was much cuter when she pretended like she knew what she was doing. That was true because he said it was true.

"Sorry," Lucy mumbled, more to the floor than to her father.

"Why did you skip your classes?"

Lucy was prepared to answer, but before she could, her mother came running into the room. She was a short woman with long dark hair and a worried look on her face. Dally almost laughed at the sight of her. While he'd never seen a father smile at his child the way Lucy's father smiled at her (except for maybe Darrel Curtis, but it was too difficult to think about the Curtis folks very much), he'd never seen a mother look so worried about her child the way Lucy's mother looked worried about her. It was almost like it wasn't really happening, and in a way, he wished that were true.

"Lucy!" Mrs. Bennet shouted. "What do you think you're doing? Skipping classes? What do you think your college applications will say?"

"Well, Mom, they won't say anything because they're pieces of paper, and paper can't talk, see. And regardless of your metaphor, doesn't matter. I mailed in all the applications a week ago. They'll never know I skipped three classes on an arbitrary Thursday."

Dally stood back and smirked a little as he listened to her. There she was. That was the Bennet he knew and didn't understand whether or not he should give a damn about.

It was then that Mrs. Bennet noticed him. But unlike Dr. Bennet, she had no composure. As soon as she saw the boy who was hauled in for breaking the windows at Lucy's school, she turned white as a ghost and pointed at him as though he were a sideshow spectacle. To people like the Bennets, he _was _a sideshow spectacle. That was why he told himself it would be a good time to torture them with the news.

"What is _he _doing here?" Mrs. Bennet asked in a cracked voice.

"_He _has a name, Mom," Lucy said. "His name is Dally."

"That doesn't answer my question. What is he _doing here_?"

Dally couldn't help but chuckle under his breath at that one. Even when this crazy mom tried to switch up her way of talking, it was still to make him look like a bastard. He didn't mind. In fact, she was right to do it. He _was _a bastard, and he knew that he couldn't make it more than two months with their daughter. It had only been two weeks of screwing around and forty-five minutes of being her husband, and already, he felt like he might go out of his mind. Why couldn't he stop fucking _thinking_? Stop fucking thinking. Just _move_.

But he didn't. He stood still and didn't even attempt to budge when he felt Lucy's fingers knot their way in between his. If anything, her touch surprised him. Over the course of two weeks, Dally had felt plenty of Lucy Bennet's body on plenty of his. But he'd never felt her hold his hand like this before. Why wasn't he twisting out of it? Things were moving too fast. He couldn't keep up.

_He _couldn't keep up? With Lucy Bennet? With a girl who brought a book to the movies in case she got bored?

Thankfully, her voice cut into his thoughts (so many fucking thoughts), and he was pulled back into disaster—that thing he knew best.

"Dally's the reason I cut my afternoon classes today," Lucy said. "We got married."

Dr. and Mrs. Bennet looked at one another, trying to figure out what they could possibly say next. As it turned out (and to no one's surprise), they had a lot to say. But to Dally's surprise (and he didn't dare let on), it was hardly any fun at all to watch the disaster unfold.

* * *

What followed for the next several minutes was a cacophony of clichés straight out of the decade prior.

"You _got married_?"

"You're _in high school_!"

"I don't think _he's_ in high school."

"This boy is a hoodlum!"

"Is it … too late to get an annulment?"

(That was the one Dally had a little bit of fun with. Mrs. Bennet had asked it, and when he replied, "Oh, yeah," in a voice a man only uses when he's remembering a woman's sharp sighs in his bed, she looked like she might be sick.)

"Are you pregnant? You must be pregnant. What are we going to do if you're pregnant?"

"Mom, I promise I'm not pregnant."

"Why would you get married?"

"Were the two of you seeing each other? We had no idea you were seeing anyone, Lucy."

"How well do the two of you really know each other?"

That was the last question they got hit with that early evening. It came from Dr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet was too preoccupied with sitting on the couch, hanging her head in her hands, wondering where she'd gone wrong as a mother. It had to be all the moving they'd done since Lucy was born, she muttered. She was looking for a sense of stability—a constant. That was all this had to be. But why would she pick a hoodlum as her constant? He was sure to get carted off to jail, and she'd be left alone, without a constant, once again. Dally didn't say anything, but he wondered that, too.

"Dad, I've known Dally since we moved here," Lucy said. "He's in with Sadie's brothers."

"He's also in with the system, as far as I understand," Dr. Bennet said. He looked to Dally, as though to get him to confirm what he already knew. Dally snorted, but only just. It was exactly like a circus leader (or whatever he was called) asking the freaks to tell the audience that yes, of course they were freaks, and yes, they were happy to be shown off like this.

Why was he thinking in all these … what would Lucy have called them? Metaphors, he thought. Why was thinking like that? It made him sound like Pony, and he wasn't Pony. Not even close. If he were like Pony, Lucy's parents wouldn't be yelling at her. It didn't matter what they thought of him, of course. He was temporary, and surely, they knew that.

"Yeah," Dally said. "Ya got that right."

Dr. Bennet pointed at Dally again, as though he wasn't really there—just for their amusement. Wasn't he? Wasn't that the only reason he'd decided to come into this house after Lucy? Of course it was. It had to be.

"You're better than this," Dr. Bennet looked right at his daughter, who refused to look him square in the eye. "You've got a lot ahead of yourself. You're going to college in the fall…"

Lucy wanted to remind her father that she wasn't going to school where she'd like to go (no Sarah Lawrence, no Bryn Mawr—despite being allowed to send applications into those schools, she knew she'd never be allowed to actually attend if she got in), so what did it matter if she got married before she graduated from high school? What did it matter if she went to college at all if she couldn't go where she wanted to go? She knew it wasn't the time, so she kept her mouth shut. Lucy loved her father more than anyone in the world, and there was nothing she worried about more than disappointing him. Why hadn't she been thinking of him when she signed the papers and married Dallas Winston? It wasn't until much later that she realized it was a good thing she hadn't thought of her father at all.

"You can't be the only girl at the lunch table with a husband," Dr. Bennet said. "People will talk, and I know you. You don't want people to talk."

"Well, I'd rather them talk then sing," Lucy said.

"Lucy, your father is trying to be serious with you," Mrs. Bennet piped up from her painful position on the couch. She was fanning herself now, despite the fact that it was nearly the middle of November, and not even Tulsa stayed boiling in the fall. When Dally got another load of Mrs. Bennet, he had to bite his lip in order to keep from laughing (Why was he holding back so much? And why was he laughing? He never laughed like this.). She said she wanted Lucy to be serious, but how could anyone take her seriously when she was sitting on the couch, fanning herself like that?

"You got married as part of a dare," Dr. Bennet said. "What if I dared you to get divorced?"

"I'm not divorcing him. That's the one dare I'm not ready to take yet," Lucy said. Her voice was firm, and Dally almost liked the sound of it. Almost.

"But _why_? You never even thought to tell us you were seeing somebody. Do the two of you even know each other at all? Does he know your birthday? Does he know your middle name?"

Lucy was going to say no, nor did it really matter, since they were going to get divorced at some point (just not yet), but Dally spoke over her.

"Her birthday's October 26," he said. "And, uh, her middle name's Victoria."

Lucy turned her head to face him and stared at him with blank confusion.

"How did you know my middle name?" she asked. It was the least of her questions, but it was the first.

"We had to fill out paperwork earlier today. I saw your middle name. It's not like it was on purpose. It was just sittin' right there for anybody to look at."

If she'd been a more sensitive young woman (or if she had owned up to the depths of her sensitivities, which she hadn't quite done), she might have taken Dally's admission as a sign of his repressed affection. But she didn't. She turned to look at her father and folded her arms in stark defiance. He couldn't move her. Once she had her sights on something, nobody could.

"If that's all the proof you need as to why we're not getting divorced, look no further, I suppose," Lucy said. "He knows my birthday and my middle name. What else could he possibly need to know in order for this to work? What else does he need to do?"

Dr. Bennet was going to remind Lucy about choosing partners based on love and respect. He was going to ask her if she had ever figured out that all the Austen he read to her before she went to sleep at night was to remind her that it's important to choose your partner based on how much they love you—how well they can communicate with you, even when sometimes, you're not even aware of it. He was going to ask her if she really thought she could find that with a common criminal like Dallas Winston, but then, Dallas Winston lifted a single strand of hair from Lucy's blouse and let it fall to the ground from his fingertips.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I know ya hate it when ya got hair on your shirt, and I didn't wanna hear you gripin' about it when ya got outta your shirt at the end of the day."

Dr. Bennet watched as his only daughter's face turned from cream-colored to a deep blush, and he almost had to smile. Of course she'd been listening to his readings of Austen. Lucy hadn't just accepted Sadie's dare because she was a stubborn girl with a brave streak a mile long. He really should have expected more out of her. Hell, he should have expected more out of Dallas Winston, the common criminal. His daughter didn't just choose people to put in her life for the hell of it. She chose people she thought would stick around.

Did she think Dallas Winston would stick around?

Based on the way he picked that single strand of hair away from Lucy's blouse, Dr. Bennet wasn't so sure what to predict. Lucy looked at him, a tired desperation in her eyes.

"Come on, Dad," Lucy implored him. "I know you're one for a good dare. I get my streak from you. But you also know you're one for the dramatic, and if Dally and I can show Sadie and Soda what a terrible mistake they made in causing all this, well, then I might have something to write about in the future. Can't you see it now?"

Dr. Bennet didn't think on it much (for fear that he would let Elinor get the best of him when he really wanted to call upon Marianne), so he just nodded. He was glad to see his daughter with some kind of happiness behind those beautiful blue eyes, even if that happiness was guarded by something. She'd been heartbroken before—a boy they'd known from the neighborhood about a year before they left for Tulsa, and other non-romantic things that hadn't gone the way she wanted them to go. He almost didn't care that it was a crook like Dallas Winston who was getting his little girl to grin. He sighed loudly and for a very long time, asking the question he hadn't been quite prepared to ask (and the question that Dally himself most dreaded), but the tighter Lucy gripped onto Dallas Winston's hand in the living room, the more he needed to ask it.

"All right," he said, relenting to something that hadn't even been a contest. "If the two of you are married, and you insist on staying married to prove a point, where the hell are you gonna live?"

Mrs. Bennet screeched something terrible, but Dr. Bennet tuned her out so that he could more clearly listen to his daughter. Lucy and Dally looked at each other, dumbfounded. For some reason, Dally wanted to answer for her—cover for her maybe, since she looked like she didn't know what to say, and he was good at coming up with bull—but to his shock, Lucy got over her fluster and was able to speak.

"We hadn't thought about that yet," she said. "You have to understand. This is a relatively new development."

"Yeah, and it don't matter if she lives with me," Dally said, confused as to why he felt compelled to jump into the family conversation. He wasn't part of this family. Even if he was legally married to the daughter, he was on the margins, like always. "We just gotta act like she does."

As he looked Dallas Winston up and down, trying to extract any understanding of his character (He must have some sort of honorable character, as even his impatient daughter wouldn't have chosen a completely hopeless case.), Dr. Bennet thought about asking him if he knew that he didn't have to _really marry _Lucy in order to prove a point to the Curtis twins. They could've pretended on that front, too. But he didn't say a word. The kid was too rough all around, and he probably wasn't ready to think about a thing like that. Based on the anxious way she shifted her weight in her shoes, Dr. Bennet could tell that Lucy wasn't ready to think about that, either.

"Best way to sell the joke is to look as convincing as you can," Dr. Bennet said.

From the couch, Mrs. Bennet yelled, "Jack! Why are you encouraging this?"

Lucy and her father exchanged knowing glances—the kind of glance they never could share with Lucy's mother. They could practically hear Mrs. Bennet rolling her eyes on the couch. She hated it when they behaved in this way.

"Dallas?" he asked.

Dally bristled a bit. His name sounded terrible in Dr. Bennet's voice. It was so different than the way he usually heard it. There were these little underpinnings of something else … something he scarcely ever heard and could not describe, unless he was walking alongside Johnny or lying next to Lucy just before she fell asleep. Was _terrible _the right word? It had to be.

"Yeah?"

He made sure his voice sounded as gruff and awful as possible, even on just that one word. If Dr. Bennet learned to hate him (Why didn't he seem to hate him?), then Lucy was sure to divorce him sooner. That was the only thing he had to look forward to in this marriage of his, apart from getting Lucy into bed and torturing the Curtis twins—the impending and inevitable divorce.

"Where... where do you live?"

Dally shrugged, but on the inside, a part of him was glad that Dr. Bennet had asked him this question. It was the perfect way to get out of this wreck.

"Here and there," he said. "Mostly up in this guy Buck's room. He's my rodeo partner."

"Rodeo?"

"Yeah, racin' horses and shit. 'S what I do. For money."

Mrs. Bennet muttered something that sounded like a prayer. Lucy's cheeks flushed, and Dally (unbeknownst to him, but very known to Lucy) grabbed her hand tighter when he felt her blush.

"I see," Dr. Bennet was trying to think of something to say, anything other than what was about to fly out of his mouth. "But you said you live 'here and there?' Does that mean…?"

"Don't really got one of them homes, no."

From the couch, Mrs. Bennet yelped again. Then, she shouted.

"Lucy! You married a boy who's _technically homeless_? What were you thinking?"

Lucy didn't answer her mother. In truth, she had no answer. Sadie had dared her to propose, but she hadn't _actually _dared her to marry Dally. Why had she insisted on doing it? Didn't she know what people would say the next day, when they undoubtedly learned about the wedding down at city hall the afternoon prior? Why _had _she married Dally? Why was she so adamant about staying married to him when she knew he couldn't wait to leave?

She looked down at her hand. His was still threaded through it.

Dr. Bennet sighed again. He was, admittedly, less beleaguered than he thought he would be if his eighteen-year-old daughter ever came home with a hoodlum husband in tow. Lucy was smart, and she always had some kind of reason for doing the things she did, even if she didn't see them right away. Although, there was something between Lucy and her hoodlum husband that told Dr. Bennet they knew, consciously or unconsciously, much more about what they had just done than they were willing to reveal.

"Tell you what," he said. "You can live here for a month."

That was when Dally felt the floor collapse underneath him. How was he supposed to live with a couple of parents? How was he supposed to live with a couple of parents who loved their daughter—the one he was taking to and from Kingdom fucking Come every night? What if they walked in on him giving it to Lucy? What if they wanted him indoors by a certain time, just like those kind of parents would? Why wasn't he bolting now?

Proving a point to the twins. Right. That was the reason.

"Then where are we supposed to go?" Lucy asked.

At the same time, she and Dally thought they'd probably be divorced by then.

"Well, by then, if you still insist on being married," Dr. Bennet said, "I expect you to find a place of your own. That means getting a job, Lucy. You think you can handle a job? A real job, not one where you sit around and read books for money?"

"That's what you do. Are you saying you don't have a real job?"

"Some days, that's how it feels. You know I only go to the office twice a week. How would you feel? Walking into the same place five times a week, hours a day, sweating, having to deal with people who ask the same stupid questions over and over? How do you feel about that?"

Lucy couldn't be duped. She knew what her father was trying to do. He was trying to convince her to divorce Dally on the spot, knowing she'd hate the sound of working in a place like a restaurant while she was still in high school. The deal was that she wouldn't have to work until she started college, but now that she was married, all bets were off.

She had a bit of a laugh with herself when she remembered that, indeed, she was eighteen years old, and indeed, she was now married. Her father had begun reading Austen novels to her when she was just four years old. Had he really expected her to turn out much different than Marianne Dashwood?

"I feel it's high time I worked for my money," Lucy said. "Fine. We'll take your deal, Dad. Won't we, Dally?"

Dally muttered something vaguely affirmative (as he wasn't sure what else he could do anymore, a first for him), Mrs. Bennet was praying just loudly enough for everyone else to hear her, and Lucy pulled Dally up the narrow flight of stairs and into the only room on a very small second floor—hers.

* * *

While Dally had never actually been in a library, he was fairly certain that no library could have as many books as Lucy Bennet had in one place.

Her bedroom had a bed, a closet, a small dresser, and nothing but books. If he wasn't careful, he was sure to trip on a stack of books. There were books under her bed. When he went through her drawers, each drawer was filled with more books, apart from the top drawer (his favorite drawer), which was filled with Lucy's underwear. It almost made him sick to look at. She was smart. How could she have done something so stupid, like marrying him?

"You know, a couple months ago, you told me you didn't spend all your time readin'," he said.

"I don't."

"The millions of books you got in here tells me something pretty fuckin' different."

"There's only a few hundred. Besides, I haven't read them all. Some of them I never plan to read. They're just there so I can say, 'Yes, I own this book.'"

"That's stupid."

"Maybe, but it's what people who think they're smart do sometimes."

"So, you admit you only think you're smart, huh?"

Flustered, Lucy bit her lip and folded her arms across her chest again. She looked awful cute when she did that. It almost made Dally want to stay married to her, but then he remembered all the things he'd have to give up if he did.

And he wasn't talking about the girls, either. He'd been with his fair share (more than his fair share, probably, he wasn't quite sure) of girls before, but it wasn't about getting as many different girls as he could. He knew that. The number didn't matter. The expendability did—that feeling of getting rid of something once you couldn't use it anymore, then replacing it with something that did almost the same thing. Like they were products on late-night TV or something. Now with more blonde. Now with less screeching. Call now to order. (Why did he just _think _like this now?) It didn't matter how many of them he got. What mattered was that none of them tried to talk to him when they were done. He'd tried it a few times just to see what would happen, and he ended up getting … he wasn't hurt. Not at all.

No, the number didn't matter. The distance did. The number was just a good way to get the distance.

But now, here was Bennet. She was walking toward him, and he didn't stop her. Why didn't he stop her? He didn't want to.

"You know," she said. "You might be less of a rake than I gave you credit."

"I ain't doin' yard work. Not for you, and not for that mother of yours, either."

Lucy laughed. She'd teach him. If they were going to stay together (for a little while, that was all, he did not love her), she'd have to.

"That's not what a rake is."

"You don't make any fuckin' sense. You know that?"

"I suppose, but neither do you. We've been here before, just the other way around."

"I'm serious."

"I shudder at the thought."

Dally motioned around the room at the sea of books he was in, as though they should speak for themselves. He'd read a few books before, though he saw no point in telling Lucy Bennet, just so she could use it against him. Whenever Pony thought he'd left a book at school or some place, it turned out Dally had just taken it from him for a couple of days, then inconspicuously returned it like it had never gone missing. He wasn't stupid. He knew he could learn a lot of shit from those books. It'd keep him from running out of his own bullshit, which was bound to happen one of these days. But he wasn't going to say that in front of Lucy. She'd just use it to her advantage, and nobody was allowed to get the jump on him—not even her, and she came the closest.

Did he really just admit that to himself? Of course not. That wasn't him.

"You read all these fuckin' books," he said, "then you turn around and look like you're gonna split a guy's lip if he so much as looks at ya funny. How's that all add together, huh? What are you tryin' to say?"

Lucy shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm trying to say the same things you are. I saw _Catch-22_ on your floor the other night."

Dally opened his mouth to protest—to say he wasn't the one who left it there, even though that would have been a lie, of course it wouldn't have mattered if he told a lie since he was always so good at it—but Lucy smirked and spoke for herself.

"One of those on-purpose accidents, I take it."

Had it been?

He couldn't think of that. In the moment, he could only think of how much he couldn't believe that he was standing there with someone he had to call his _wife_. He never thought a girl would be stupid enough to marry him, nor did he ever think he'd live long enough to have the option. Bennet made him think too much. She was too smart and too tough and too much like him, and he couldn't stop _thinking_—about her, about the dare, about himself. Why wasn't he running? Didn't he hate it? Didn't he hate her?

Thankfully, she slithered toward him and slid her hand under his shirt, and he didn't have to think anymore.

* * *

**So, this story has a fairly long preamble with character development and situational development, but we're getting to the end of it … I promise. Enjoy the dialogue while we're here … it's the only thing I'm OK at. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**In which I include a piece of terrible meta-writing that sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb.**

* * *

By Monday, Lucy's marriage to Dallas Winston was common knowledge. People were whispering about her in the hallway, and more of her loved it than hated it. She had always secretly wanted to be at the heart of a scandal. That way, when she was vindicated, she could have the last laugh. Of course, there wasn't much room for vindication here. She _had_ married Dallas Winston, but what was the public payoff? When she graduated _without _a newborn? It hardly seemed worth it to brag about that.

At lunch, Lilly had the most questions. Lucy was in such a bizarrely good mood that she didn't even mind the interrogation.

"What do your parents think of Dally?" Lilly asked.

"Can't imagine they like him too much," Katie said. "I mean, he's Dally."

"They give him a pretty wide berth," Lucy said. "My mom's just plain terrified of him, which I think is funny, considering he never goes anywhere near her. My dad doesn't seem to mind too much that he's there, but I think he's hoping we'll fall in love or something."

"But I thought you _did _love him," Jane interrupted. "I thought that's what we'd been spending months tryin' to get you to see."

Lucy shrugged, taking a big bite of her sandwich so she could avoid talking to Jane.

"I guess I do," she finally said, her mouth full of bread. "But he doesn't feel the same way about me. He can't. So, it's better to … I don't know. It's better to condition myself into not loving him again."

She leaned over to talk to Sadie, who was clearly sitting on something she had to say.

"Doesn't sound like a real healthy relationship, does it?" Lucy asked Sadie directly. "I mean, if you're gonna be married, you might as well love each other, right? Can't have it so that the wife loves the husband, and the husband doesn't give a hang about the wife."

"I'd say that describes a lot of marriages around here," Katie (rightly) pointed out.

"Shut up, Katie," Lilly said. "You're not helping."

Meanwhile, Sadie shrugged, trying to think of the best way to tell Lucy what she thought.

"I know what you're trying to do," she said. "Trust me. It won't work."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes."

"And what am I trying to do?"

"You're trying to make yourself miserable so that you can divorce Dally before you think he can divorce you."

Lucy bit her tongue to keep from swearing—not at Sadie, at herself. Sadie looked at her with a gleam in her eye, one that said, "You know I'm right."

"I don't think you're doomed to fail, you know," Sadie said, turning back to her lunch like her words hadn't been a bomb dropped on the lunch table.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked. "Of course we're doomed to fail. My mother's terrified of him, we hardly communicate, and when we do, it's simple questions. I ask him if he's seen my other shoe, he says no. He asks me if he's allowed to smoke in the house, I say no, but he does it, anyway. I ask him if he wants me to …"

She looked at Lilly, who still wasn't in the place to talk about anything that reminded her of her own rumor mill just yet.

"Well, you get the picture. We might be married, but we're no couple."

"I guess that's not _wrong_," Sadie said. "But I don't think that's the way it's always going to be. And don't think I'm not wise to all your little games, either. There's almost nobody I understand better than I understand you, and I know what the two of you think you're doing."

Lucy sighed a little bit, knowing there was nothing she could ever successfully hide from Sadie. She'd tried, of course. She tried to hide her initial feelings for Dally. She tried to hide her rage. It didn't seem to matter what she tried. Sadie could always open her up and take out exactly what she was thinking … exactly what she was feeling. It was a gift Lucy had only seen in one other person, and he looked just like Sadie.

"You think you're dragging this out so that Soda and I see what a big mistake we made in pushing you together," Sadie continued. "But that's not going to work. We ain't the ones who told you that you needed to get married. You're the ones who decided that part for yourselves."

Lucy sunk into her chair. And to think, she thought she'd forgotten that little detail.

"I don't think you really made the wrong call, gettin' together," Sadie said. "I think it's a little strange you got married in two weeks like this is some kinda bogus fairy tale, but I don't think the two of you together is the wrong call. Now, you just gotta ask yourself. Do _you _think it was the wrong call?"

Lucy didn't answer. It wasn't that she was lost for one. She wasn't. It was that she was lost for anything that made her look strong, and she wasn't going to get weak now.

* * *

"'Bout the only thing that's good about livin' with Bennet's folks is that they always got food or somethin'," Dally said. He was hanging around Soda and Two-Bit (who, because it was Monday, decided to skip school) at the DX, trying to forget that he was almost looking forward to when Lucy would be finished with school. "Ain't never gotta worry about gettin' somethin' yourself 'cause they just get it for ya."

He'd said the same thing to Lucy before she left for school that morning. She'd kissed him and said, "'That boy will be hung! I know that boy will be hung!'" He didn't quite get what she was saying, so he told her she must have known that he was already hung. Lucy pretended like she didn't get a kick out of that one. Dally knew she did.

"You sure that's the only good thing about livin' with her?" Two-Bit asked. "Don't you get to be with her?"

"Ah, yeah, it's real easy," Dally said. "Gotta squeeze myself in on a Friday while her old lady's gettin' somethin' from the store, and her old man's at some meetin' or another. Real easy. Real fun."

He looked over at Soda, who was flipping through the pictures in a magazine on the counter. Soda was trying to look like he was staying out of Dally's business, but everyone knew he was listening.

"You must feel awful fuckin' stupid," Dally said. "Pushin' me together with Bennet like that."

"Ya think I feel stupid for givin' you a place to live where people are lookin' after you? Ya think I should feel stupid about that? 'Cause I'm thinkin' even you know how big a load that is."

Dally grumbled something unintelligible and leaned harder on the counter. Why wasn't he angrier? He pushed the question out of his head. It wasn't important.

"Her old lady thinks I'm some kinda devil or somethin'," he said. "I don't know."

"Well, is she wrong?" Two-Bit asked.

"You say one more word, and I'll deck you so hard you won't even remember it when you wake up tomorrow."

Two-Bit backed off, and Dally wondered if he remembered anything about that night behind Jay's when Two-Bit tried to come onto Violet. It didn't seem like it. Maybe it wasn't worth it to remind him. Dally turned back to Soda, trying to get him to admit that he and Sadie had fucked everything up.

"Her old man's always askin' me if I know what he's readin'," Dally continued. "I tell him I can read the title on the cover, but I don't fuckin' know what happens in fuckin' _Little Dorrit_. I don't even know what a Dorrit is."

"I don't know why you're askin' me," Soda said.

"I ain't askin' you shit. I'm tellin' you. I can't live in a house where the old lady thinks I'm the devil, the old man gives me fuckin' English tests, and I can't screw my wife."

He felt suddenly strange. He'd used the word _wife _a few times since Thursday afternoon, but this was the first time he'd referred to Lucy as _my wife_. Hopefully, neither Two-Bit nor Sodapop noticed his words.

But, of course, they did. Two-Bit burst out laughing, seeming to forget that Dally had threatened to deck him not three minutes earlier. Soda let out a couple of low chuckles himself, but Dally (somehow) knew he wasn't laughing at him. It wasn't clear what he was laughing at, exactly, but it wasn't Dally.

"I'm sorry, man!" Two-Bit managed between embarrassing guffaws. "It's just … you got a wife! You! I was pretty sure you'd be dead by now!"

Dally swore at him, but in reality, he had been thinking the same thing since his eighteenth birthday had come and gone. He'd been nothing but trouble—worse than trouble—since the day he was born to a fourteen-year-old girl and her fifteen-year-old sometimes-steady with a premature drinking problem. How could someone with all that against him make it to eighteen? How could someone with all that against him make it to eighteen only to marry a professor's daughter?

"I'm serious, man," Two-Bit kept on, not getting the damned hint. "I had a dream this summer you'd get yourself killed 'round the end of August. Johnny was in it. Pony, too."

"Shut up, Two-Bit."

He turned back to Soda, trying to make him admit that what he and his crazy-as-shit twin sister had asked Lucy to do was a mistake, and they should get divorced and out of each other's lives right away. Couldn't Soda just tell him now so he could get out? He knew Lucy wanted to beat him to the punch, but he wasn't going to let her off that easy. He had to be the one to dump her ass—had to be the one to leave her crying. That was what he knew how to do, and he was good at it.

"It don't sound like fun, do it?" Dally asked, but Soda wouldn't make eye contact. "Livin' with a couple of folks who can't stand me and a broad who …"

He stopped. He couldn't think of much bad to say about Lucy. It wasn't much fun to feel her up when he knew her folks could walk in at any second, and sometimes it drove him crazy when she said shit he didn't understand. But none of that was bad _about _Lucy. Lucy just happened to be there when bad shit was going down. She was … well, he'd said it before, so there wasn't any problem with saying it again. She was funny.

"Dally, if you can't bring yourself to say a bad word about Lucy," Soda said, still not looking him in the eye, as though that would be too much for one day, "then maybe …"

"Then maybe I ain't lookin' hard enough?"

"Then maybe you ain't as low as you think you oughta be."

He paused, thinking again. What was with all this _thinking_? With Sylvia and the other broads before her, he'd never had to think this much or even at all. He would move—wordlessly, thoughtlessly, impulsively, never worrying what she would say to him the next time she saw him, whoever she was. But there was no part of him that could ever possibly enjoy living with the Bennet folks. They weren't his people, and they didn't want to be. It was just as well. He didn't want to be with them, either. He had to remind himself of that, otherwise he'd just keep _thinking_.

"You said it yourself the other night," Soda kept on. "I'm dumb, but I ain't stupid. Me and Sadie know what you and Lucy are tryin' to do, and we ain't gonna let you. Nobody's gonna break you up 'cept you guys."

"I don't think Lucy's plannin' on breakin' up with you any time soon, Dally," Two-Bit added. "She spent all her time thinkin' about you and talkin' about you before. In case that's what you're worried about."

"I ain't worried about anything."

Lucy would leave him if he didn't act soon, but he wasn't worried about that. It was just a fact of life, like how he was nothing more than a hood whose father hated him. He didn't know why he had to be the one to leave her first. All he knew was that it was true. How … there was no correct word for what it would be, but it would really be something if the only person who'd ever seen him as a whole person just up and left him. He would understand, but he wouldn't …

He stopped himself and lit a cigarette. That would do it. That was movement.

"Y'know, me and Sadie were talkin' about it the other night," Soda said. "And we thought of somethin'."

"That you're a couple of idiots?"

"Naw, that Sadie dared Lucy to ask you to marry her, but you're the one who said yes. Nobody said nothin' about that."

Dally took a long drag. Keep moving. Keep moving. Don't think on it. Keep moving.

"I think you made the right call, sayin' yes," Soda kept talking. When did he become such a royal pain in the ass, anyway? Finally, he looked up from the magazine he was idly thumbing through and made eye contact with Dally. It was almost what he would, one day, learn was called _the uncanny_. Those were the same eyes that had scared him into showing up at Bennet's birthday party a month before. He'd listened to them then. Why did he keep listening to these kids? They didn't know jack shit.

"Point is," he said, "whadda _you_ think about it?"

Dally didn't answer. It wasn't that he didn't have a thought all prepared and ready to go—apparently, that was all he ever did anymore, _think_—but he didn't want to speak. To speak to Soda would make him look weak, and saying yes to Lucy Bennet's marriage proposal was already weak enough. He couldn't afford another blow … unless Lucy Bennet was the one dealing it.

* * *

One night, about two weeks into their seeming sham of a marriage, while Mrs. Bennet was (thankfully) at a friend's house for some kind of something (neither Dally nor Lucy paid much attention when she said she would be gone for a few hours), and Lucy was upstairs finishing an essay on some massive novel due the next day, Dally was left alone in the living room with Dr. Bennet. Though Dally threw on his leather to leave the place he'd convinced himself was worse than jail to go meet up with Shepard, Dr. Bennet stopped him at the door. Against his better judgment (better?), he listened, turned around, and let Dr. Bennet talk at him. He held up one of his massive books.

"Do you know what this is?" Dr. Bennet asked.

Dally scanned the cover with his eyes. He'd seen the same copy of the same book in Lucy's bedroom—his bedroom now, too—but he didn't know what it was, really.

"Says _Tess of the … of the … _don't make me fuckin' say words I don't know."

"_Tess of the d'Urbervilles_," Dr. Bennet finished for him. "You ever heard of it?"

"If I can't even say it, do you think I've heard of it?"

"It's one of your wife's favorite books. I thought it was entirely possible."

Dally snorted contemptuously. He hated it when Lucy's folks referred to her as _your wife _in front of him. It felt so smug, like they were trying to prove some sort of point. Lucy was too good to be _your wife_. And yet, even though that felt very clear to him, there was always a plate for him on the kitchen table. Always a spot for him in the living room (which, to his abject horror, they insisted on calling the _family room_). What was that about?

"The book's about a woman named Tess who loses her virginity to a man called Alec," Dr. Bennet said. "Although, it's not exactly Tess's choice, if you know what I mean."

Dally nodded, after seeing the look on his face, so did Dr. Bennet. He wasn't sure if Dallas Winston had any boundaries, and there was no way he could have known that was one of the only ones. He'd never hit a woman, and though he tried to force a kiss on Cherry Valance the night he got out of jail and found out that Sylvia had been two-timing him again, he'd never have … not when he thought about what he thought might have happened to Violet when they were just kids.

"Well, Tess gives birth to a baby named Sorrow, who dies just after he's born," Dr. Bennet continued. "Eventually, she finds that guy, Alec, and she stabs him to death in his bed."

Dally was still nodding. "Good for her. Sounds like a tough broad."

"She is. And so is my daughter. And I'd like to make sure that my daughter is …"

Dr. Bennet searched for the right word, and unfortunately, _safe _was entirely wrong. He knew that Lucy could never be completely safe with Dallas Winston. He had old scores to settle and new ones to create, which was part of why he'd stopped the kid at the door that night. But it wasn't just that Lucy had chosen to marry Dallas Winston, of all the people she could have chosen. It was that love was never safe. If he knew his daughter (and he did—better than he knew anyone else in the world, even his wife), he knew that she really did love this hood. There was a light behind her eyes that Dr. Bennet didn't see in her very often, but he always knew what it meant when he was there.

"I wanna make sure my daughter knows what she's in for with you," Dr. Bennet finally said. "And I wanna make sure that you're not planning to hurt her on purpose."

Maybe it was wishful thinking. He knew it was a stupid thing to ask. But he knew he needed to. If Lucy weren't going to ask the questions she needed to be asking, then Dr. Bennet would ask them for her. It was how they helped each other.

Dally didn't know what to say, which was a good thing, really. It meant that he was finally learning how to shut out all that damned _thinking_. But as soon as he thought he had nothing to say, the thinking started back up again. It was so loud, and he just wanted it to shut the hell up. His pleas didn't matter. The thoughts just kept coming, one right after another, talking over each other. Worst of all was that none of the voices sounded like his own. There was his old man, Tim Shepard, Darry, Soda … so much of Soda, which didn't make sense. Then, in the back of his mind, there was Lucy. He couldn't figure out what Lucy was trying to tell him, but he knew she was there. It almost made him feel a certain kind of way, but he didn't have time for that. Not at all.

Dr. Bennet tried again. He was going to skip the prodding and go straight for the jugular. Maybe that would catch him so off guard that it would work. He narrowed his eyes at the boy standing in front of him and went for it.

"Do you think you could love her?"

Dally didn't say anything. He couldn't. That wasn't a question he knew how to answer, and that wasn't a thing he thought he could do or feel. He knew it was what Bennet wanted. It was what every part of her cried out for. Not like she was desperate, but that she was such a fucking _person _that it was what she needed. He couldn't give it to her. He couldn't answer that question. He wouldn't.

But he could talk about her in other ways.

"Hey," he said. "What's it mean when that daughter of yours looks at me and says, 'That boy will be hung! I know that boy will be hung!'?"

Dr. Bennet laughed out loud, and Dally wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign. What did it matter? He was going to leave this house in two weeks, anyway. If Lucy weren't tired of trying to piss off the twins with their marriage, then he'd just pack up and leave without even telling her. That would show her to get married on a fucking dare.

It would show him, too, but he wouldn't think of it that way.

"It means she's quoting _Oliver Twist _at you," Dr. Bennet said. "It's Dickens."

"Two of 'em? In where?"

"_Charles _Dickens."

Dally smirked, and judging by the look of it, Dr. Bennet assumed he'd known that all along.

"Tell you what," Dr. Bennet said. "If she's quoting Dickens at you, especially the obscure stuff … well, I think you're gonna have to look a little harder for a place to live."

As Dally pulled on his jacket, he thought—dammit to hell with all this thinking—of where he'd really go when he walked out that door. The twins weren't budging, but that wasn't a surprise. They could be as stubborn as he and Lucy were sometimes. The surprise was that he wasn't budging. He kept coming back to the same house every night. They hadn't made him a key or anything (That would have been a bit much.), but they always let him back in when they knocked. Even Mrs. Bennet, who still bugged the life out of him, didn't seem to shudder so much when he made eyes at Lucy from across the kitchen. Why wasn't he moving? Wasn't this exactly what he wanted to avoid for himself?

He unlocked the door from the inside and took off, hoping the movement would stop him from asking all these questions.

* * *

Dally got back to the house around midnight, and Dr. Bennet (who seemed never to sleep, at least not on the nights Dally went out) let him in. He mentioned that Lucy had fallen asleep after draining herself on that Dickens essay, so if he could manage it, he should be respectful of her. He muttered something that not even he quite understood and made his way up the skinny stairway and into the only room on the second floor—his.

He laughed at the sight of her. He laughed at the sight of his wife. It wasn't a bad laugh. It was … well, like Lucy herself, it was something he couldn't quite put a word to.

Lucy was sprawled out across her bed (their bed now), sleeping on her stomach, wearing nothing but a T-shirt that was too big for her. He looked closer—his. He'd rag on her for it in the morning, careful not to seem too playful or friendly. He wasn't either of those things. He'd spent eighteen years building up immunity to cordiality.

Still, he looked closer. She was drooling on the blanket. It wasn't charming, and he'd woken up plenty of mornings with his cheek or his chest covered in Bennet's spit. He'd never said anything since he figured it wasn't worth it. After all, he sure did like her spit in other places. She made these awful little motor-sounding noises, like she was trying to fight off some cars that came to life in her dreams or something. She did not look beautiful at all.

He reached out his hand and shook her shoulders a little bit. She jolted awake and panted heavily, like someone had come to stab her. It was a good thing he'd left his blade in one of her (their) drawers. She told him it would be cheeky to keep it beside _To Kill a Mockingbird _because some guy didn't really fall on his own knife in that book or … something. He was really trying not to pay attention.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked.

"Plenty," he said. "Ya knew that when ya signed up for this."

"You don't wake up a woman when she's sleeping in the middle of the night. Not unless you got a damn good reason."

He sighed curtly. He was sure to regret this in the morning, but he figured he would do it now and get it over with. Maybe she'd kick him out before the morning. Maybe this was what he needed to do to finally get out of this … whatever this was.

He put his hands together and slid his ring off, thrusting it toward her as if to tell her to take it. Confused, she delicately reached out and took it, examining it as though it were something precious to her.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's that fuckin' Ark of the Covenant you and your old man were goin' on about the other day 'fore he left for work," he said. "What's it look like? 'S my ring."

"I know what it is. What I meant to ask is why you're giving it to me."

Dally almost grinned, though he thought he didn't know why.

"I don't know," he said. "Thought maybe if we were really gonna bug the twins, you might wanna wear it."

The first thing she did was put on the ring; careful not to look like she'd been waiting for this since the afternoon they signed those papers. Lucy looked up at Dally, exhausted out of her mind but still wanting to ask him that question—the one that was burning on the tip of her tongue. She must have been too tired to protect herself, so she spoke without her typical filter.

"You sure you don't just want me to wear it because you _like _that you married me?"

He thought of a million responses at once. Most were mean. Some were a little less mean. After a second or two, he settled on the one he thought was best: snorting disapprovingly at her and growling, "Move over."

She did, muttering a few curses at him under her breath. If he hadn't been so angry with himself for thinking too much, he might have actually liked the sound of her voice there. He stripped off his clothes, knowing full well that Lucy was begrudgingly admiring what she saw. He got into his side of the bed and turned his back to her. It wasn't that he was pissed at her. He was, but he knew that much was bullshit. He was more pissed at himself for … whatever it was that made him think about her so much.

Dally didn't want Lucy to see his face because he was fighting a smile—a smile at her. He hadn't planned on slipping off his ring and giving it to her that night. He hadn't planned on slipping it off and giving it to her (or any other girl) at all. But when he saw her all sprawled out on the mattress like that, she was a far cry away from beautiful. And that made him … it made him feel like she needed his ring. That was it. That was all.

* * *

"So, do I call you Mom, or is that not how this relationship works?"

Mrs. Bennet opened her front door, and before she could even say hello, the rough-looking girl on her porch just started speaking to her like they were old friends. Based on the devil-may-care look in her eyes, Mrs. Bennet figured there was someone in her house who knew who in the hell this girl was.

"Dallas!" she shouted toward Lucy's (and her husband's) room on the second floor. "I think this person belongs to you!"

A moment later, Dally and Lucy came in from upstairs, perplexed to see Violet Winston standing in the doorway. She had her arms folded across her chest, looking like she might want to try to beat her brother (or her sister-in-law) to a pulp if either of them got too close. Before she could tear into the new Mr. and Mrs., she figured she'd set the record straight with this old lady in the doorway.

"First of all, I don't belong to nobody, so let's get that straight," she said. "Second of all, I'm Violet."

"That doesn't tell me who you are," Mrs. Bennet pointed out.

Lucy felt her ire ripen in her gut. Her mother was once a middle-class girl from Connecticut, where Lucy had been born and spent the first few years of her life. Even after traveling the country for years upon years, Mrs. Bennet hadn't quite learned how to shake that uppity middle-class sheen that people like Dally and Violet hated.

"She's my sister," Dally said. "And she really shouldn't be here."

"But if it's OK with you, Mom," Lucy jumped in, thinking it was important for Dally to have a talk with the only halfway decent member of his family, "I'd like Violet come inside."

Mrs. Bennet threw up her arms in surrender and stepped aside, allowing for Violet to walk through the door and straight at Dally. She pushed him backward a few times, and if he hadn't been so angry at her for showing up at the Bennets' place like this, he might have actually been impressed. Violet packed a stronger punch than he remembered.

"You got _married_?" she asked.

"Yeah, weeks ago," Dally said. "How'd you find out? I didn't tell you on purpose."

"You hadn't sent me a thing in weeks. I figured I'd go lookin'. I'm sorta sorry I did."

"Who told you I got married?"

"See, that's the worst fuckin' part of it. I had to talk to _Jane Randle_, and you know how much I hate Jane Randle."

Lucy raised her hand a little bit to jump into the conversation, informing Violet that, in case she didn't know, Jane was one of her best friends. Violet just snapped that she was very sorry to hear than and then moved on with her berating of Dally for getting married behind her back … or getting married at all.

"What's the matter with you, man?" she asked. "You know you can't dodge the war if you're married without kids anymore. LBJ changed the law months ago, just to be a dick. Which makes sense, given his fuckin' name."

She looked Lucy up and down, almost scoffing at the sight of her. Lucy felt her palms turn into fists, and she was aware of it this time. She almost didn't care if the person going after her was really her sister-in-law. If she deserved to get decked for what she was about to say, then it couldn't make a lick of difference.

"And what do you think you're doing? Marryin' him?" Violet asked. "Me and you both know you can do better than this hood."

Lucy breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She couldn't imagine being on the receiving end of one of Violet Winston's violent outbursts. She'd heard stories about glass flying, eyes nearly falling out of their sockets, and fires getting started in the kitchens when no one knew the stove was turned on. She didn't want to be next on an incredibly long list of Winston casualties.

"Maybe she likes bein' married to me," Dally said. "You ever think of that? She's wearin' my ring. Ain't you, Lucy?"

Reluctantly, Lucy held up her left hand to model the silver band Dally had given her in bed about a week earlier. When Sadie asked her if she thought that meant he was really committing to the marriage, Lucy shrugged and told her that she doubted it. It was really there to bother her and Soda and beg them to get divorced. As soon as Sadie heard that part of the plan, she clapped her hands together and cracked up, like she knew significantly more about the future than any human could know.

"Shoot!" Sadie had said. "I was never gonna tell you to leave him before, but I'm really never gonna tell ya now."

Meanwhile, Violet stared at Lucy's hand with little interest. She looked back up at Dally with that tough boredom in her eyes—the kind of jaded he'd felt himself losing little by little the more time he spent in the Bennet house. He needed to grab onto Violet and bolt to somewhere where he blended in. At the Bennet household, he stood out like the sorest thumb anyone had ever seen. He needed to get back whatever that was before he'd realized how cute Lucy Bennet really was. That guy was real. That guy couldn't feel as many terrible things all at once. What had happened to make him feel—make him _think_—in this way that was so different from the version of himself that he'd grown to despise?

"Fascinating," Violet said, her voice dripping with every possible sarcastic intonation. She relaxed a little bit when she saw how easily Lucy's arm fit through the crook of her brother's. It was enough to make even Violet Winston see the romance in it, though she'd never say a thing like that for as long as the either of the siblings lived. Violet looked at Dally again, the rage drained from her face and replaced by morbid interest.

"I don't really give a hang if you're married," Violet said. "I give a hang that ya wouldn't tell me, but not if it's real. I'm really here to give you a message."

She paused for a moment, and Dally thought maybe it was a better idea to run away from her and Lucy at the same time. But before he could make up his mind (before he could stop _thinking_), Violet spoke again.

"It's from the old man," she said.

"What's he say? That I'm a mistake?"

"He always says that in so many words, don't he? This time, he says he never wants to see you again, he can't believe any broad is stupid enough to marry you, but don't knock the bitch up 'less you never want a dime of your money to be yours."

Lucy felt like she might vomit and tightened her grip on Dally. He didn't even flinch. Why didn't he flinch?

"But they're his words," Violet added. "Not mine."

If Dally hadn't known better, he would have thought Violet was trying to protect him. Of course, he did know better, and so did she.

"As though he ever gave me a dime of what he made," Dally muttered. "When he was makin' anything, anyway. Fuck him."

It was the understatement of the year, but he didn't know how else to put it without losing his cool. He'd learned not to lose his cool when Mrs. Bennet was around. A week earlier, he'd gotten into it with an open cupboard door that he'd fallen into, and she looked like she might pass out. That horrified look on her face bugged him, so he tried not to say anything in front of her anymore.

"Fuck him," Violet said.

She looked at Lucy, a knowing look in her eyes.

"But I kinda figured he had a point," she said. "I mean, why else would Dally marry a girl, 'specially a girl he'd only been screwing for a couple weeks?"

"I'm not pregnant," Lucy said for the umpteenth time. Last week, she'd found out for certain. "Believe me, at this point, it would be easier to just say that I am, but it's not true."

"Well, glory hallelujah. Can't imagine somethin' that's half Dally just walkin' around out here like it was nothin'."

"I don't think there'd be anything much worse."

"There ain't. But lemme ask ya somethin'."

"Ya can't live here, V," Dally said. "Think it'd kill Bennet's folks to have another one of us runnin' around in here. I ain't wanting to be the guy who kills 'em. Plus, we gotta be outta here sooner than later."

"Are you kiddin' me? That ain't my question. I'd die here. Already havin' trouble breathin', and it ain't the Kools this time. It's that _picture_."

Lucy didn't even need to look backward to know that Violet was mocking that oversized picture of her when she was eight years old and made her First Communion at church. Her parents kept it up because they thought she looked real cute in it, but she always begged them to take it down. The Bennets were nominally Catholic, but they never talked about it since they stopped going to church when Lucy was about thirteen. She squirmed uncomfortably when she thought of Violet Winston's eyes on that picture. She was wearing that tiny little white dress and veil. The marriage metaphor wasn't lost on Lucy—not even then. The other moms at the church gushed about how one day, all the girls would wear white dresses again when they married their perfect little grooms. How they would have fainted to learn that Lucy Bennet went to city hall in her nicest pedal pushers to marry a chain-smoking delinquent. How Lucy couldn't have pictured her wedding any other way.

"Ask your fuckin' question 'fore I throw you through the wall," Dally said. Lucy wondered if perhaps he was defending her honor, but that was absurd. He did not love her.

Violet looked back and forth between her brother and Lucy, a sly glint in her eye that had to be exclusive to sisters.

"When I talked to … _Jane Randle _… she said you was only stayin' married to piss off the Curtis twins," Violet said. "But the Curtis twins ain't pissed. So, why're ya still married?"

Lucy and Dally looked at each other now. And to think, they'd readily convinced themselves that they wouldn't have to be honest about it—that they wouldn't have to _think _about it. That they could just keep moving until things fell apart. Why weren't things falling apart? Why did they look forward to seeing each other when Lucy came home from school? Why did Dally think of that room upstairs as _home_? He'd never caught himself thinking a thing like that before. Impulsively, he wanted to get up and leave, taking Violet with him, but Lucy's impatience got the better of both of them. She touched his hand, and somehow, he knew what she was trying to tell him.

* * *

After Violet had gone, Lucy pulled Dally back up to her (their) bedroom. They sat directly across from one another on the bed, like a couple of diplomats. At this point, they had been married nearly a month, and Lucy was sure they would have been heading for a divorce by now. And yet, they weren't. Though they tried to complain about each other in front of Sadie and Soda, they never had very bad things to say. Most recently, Lucy told Sadie that Dally smelled too much like smoke, but Sadie called her bluff by reminding Lucy that she'd known that going in. She was probably even numb to the smell by now. Lucy gritted her teeth inside her mouth because it was true. Around the same time, Dally told Sodapop that Lucy was always calling him things he didn't understand, like a rake that apparently _wasn't _used for yard work, but Soda called his bluff by reminding Dally that he'd known that going in. He was probably getting pretty decent at looking up Lucy's references by now. Dally narrowed his eyes at the kid because it was true.

But what was their problem? Did they even have one? The longer they stayed together, the less they bickered, though they still bickered their fair share. It had even gotten to the point where instead of going right to sleep after making it, they stayed awake for a little while to _talk _to each other—not fight, but talk. Naturally, Lucy was more loquacious, and Dally's responses were fairly cut-and-dried. But they were talking. A few nights earlier, she'd even gotten him to be a little bit honest about his father.

"Why do you hate him so much?" Lucy had asked. "I mean, I know he treated you and your sister like shit, but there's gotta be … I don't know, I think there's a tipping point for everything."

Dally let out a long sigh. He didn't want to remember this (and he'd gone to extreme lengths to try to forget it), but if Lucy was bringing it up, then he might as well tell her. After all, she was his wife, and wives got to know about this shit.

"I was ten when my old lady," he started, but he couldn't exactly finish. He'd never told Lucy how she died, but it didn't matter. Lucy knew, and he understood that.

"Well, I was ten, and me and V were left alone with the old man," he said. "More an' more of his buddies started hangin' around the house. Always wantin' to talk to V. V was always gettin' bruises and shit, from him and from fallin' down all the fuckin' time, but these were different. They weren't in the same spots. Ya dig?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I dig." She knew he wasn't going to say it, but as someone who planned to one day, work really hard to eradicate this kind of trash; she could hear it in his voice.

"One day it was enough. This was the last thing he was gonna do. He'd done plenty of shit before, understand. But I'd just fuckin' take it. That time, I didn't. I came at him and tried to beat the shit outta him. Woulda decked him a lot harder if I'd been a little bigger, but he was bigger. And I was …"

Dally stopped. It wasn't that he was unable to admit defeat, though that was part of it. It was that somewhere in his mind, he knew that was the moment it was easier not to care about anyone. You care about somebody, and you end up bleeding from your head on the kitchen floor, getting sworn at while your only ally in the world can't help you because she's too damn small.

"Hopped a Greyhound that night," he said. "Went to New York. Came back after a little while. Went back again when I was eleven. Didn't come back here till I was just about fifteen."

"I remember," Lucy mumbled. Her face was on his torso now. Why wasn't he batting her away?

_Stay there_.

Who said that?

He was almost thinking he might say more, but when he looked down at Lucy, she was asleep, right on his body. He considered moving her off of him and decided not to. There was something about the way her face felt against him, and he wasn't one to chase away something that felt good.

But there they were, just a few nights later, sitting right across from each other on the bed, an ocean of covers between them. They said nothing for a long while, then Lucy, in her impatience, broke the silence.

"Why haven't you left me yet?"

Dally snorted, this time, with more amusement than contempt.

"Dunno. I could ask you the same question."

Lucy sighed. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't tell him that she loved him, even though she did. She knew she did, even though she didn't always think about it in certain terms. So, she did the only thing she knew how. She inched closer to him (not so close that he would notice, though he did) and looked him right in the eye. The surprise was that he didn't attempt to break her gaze.

"You're the only person I've met for as long as I've lived here that's not too scared to tell me what they think of me," she said, amazed that it all came out in one breath. "It doesn't make a difference to you that I'm supposed to be smart. When I'm riding in on my high horse, you know when to tell me to get down from it. You're not afraid to go up against me, but when you do, neither of us wins. You fight with me, but it's not because you don't like me."

Dally wanted to tell her that she was right, though that would have been too vulnerable. Instead, he just sat there and dumbly nodded, hoping she'd be able to hear what he was thinking. Somehow, he knew she could.

"You're a challenge, but you're a challenge I kinda like," Lucy said. "When you look at me, I know you see me. And I … well, I like it. I know that's a stupid word. _Like. _I know that. But right now, it's the only word I have, so it's the one I'm gonna use. Is that all right?"

"Yeah," he grumbled. "All right."

She smirked a little. As much as she wanted to tell herself that it didn't matter if it was all right—that it didn't matter if he packed up everything and left her in that very second—she was more than relieved that he was still sitting there. He wasn't moving. He wasn't even looking toward the door.

Why wasn't he looking toward the door?

Though he wasn't prepared to say it to her (and wasn't sure he ever would be), Dally thought about Lucy in the same way she thought about him. No matter the shit he threw at her, even the shit he threw on purpose to try to get her to go away, nothing ever worked. He'd heard her mother nearly beg her to leave him immediately, but Lucy would always say that it was her choice. It was her choice, and she was going to stay with Dally until he didn't want her anymore. She snapped at him when he needed to be snapped at, and for some reason, he always listened to what she had to say. Maybe it was that her voice annoyed him so much. He didn't know. Either way, he was never quite able to tune Lucy out. He'd throw bullshit line after bullshit line right at her, and every time, she caught it. Sometimes she threw back more bullshit, like she didn't even care that he was _Dallas Winston_, and he could make anybody's life hell … but only if he wanted to. He was trying to make her life hell, so why wasn't she acting like it?

Then, he knew. He might have been Dallas Winston, but she was Lucy Bennet. And like Dallas Winston, Lucy Bennet always got what she wanted, too.

She wasn't turning him away because she didn't want to. She refused to refuse him. Some part of him, the part that hadn't been desensitized, the part he thought he'd given up on before he saw the rage in her eyes, knew that Lucy could see right through every layer of hard and tough, to the one place in him that was still untouched. It wasn't that his toughness was a mask. It was as real as any other part of him, and he didn't plan on getting rid of it, either. But Lucy knew there was more. She might have been the only person in the world who did.

She refused to refuse him. And he didn't want her to.

"Then we understand each other," Lucy said.

"Yeah. Guess we do."

It would be months before either of them mentioned divorce again.

* * *

**What **_**is **_**the ideal ratio of dialogue and interiority? I've been writing for over two decades, and I don't think I'll ever figure it out. This act of the story is winding down – probably only two more chapters on this front. Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. I quote **_**Oliver Twist **_**in here, which is in the public domain, but I wouldn't own it either way.**


	5. Chapter 5

About a week went by, and Lucy got two letters in the mail. One was from the University of Tulsa, who told her they'd be delighted if she would matriculate with the class of 1970. The other was from Bryn Mawr, who told her that after careful consideration of her application, they determined she was not a good fit for their institution.

After crying about it with her father (and making sure Dally wasn't there to see her shed a tear—even if they had agreed upon the meaning of their relationship, she still didn't feel comfortable enough to cry around him), she went to the Curtis house to complain about it with Sadie.

"They're jerks," Sadie said. "Stuck-up jerks. I never liked 'em."

"I'll say," Soda chimed in from the other side of the room, where he was practically glued to Jane. Lucy had to smile at the two of them. It almost made her happy.

"You don't wanna go to a school where there's just girls, anyway," Ponyboy said.

"Sounds like fun to me," Two-Bit (predictably) added.

"They wouldn't want you, anyway, Two-Bit," Darry said as he entered the conversation from the kitchen. "They only let smart kids in."

"Ouch," Lucy laughed a little.

"Aww, hey, I'm sorry, Lucy," Darry said. "You know you're smart."

"She knows it a little too well, if ya ask me," Jane joked from across the room.

"Hey, shut up, Jane."

Lucy turned her head toward the back of the house, and her eyes followed as Dally came in front outside, smelling like the smoke she'd almost grown to like. He tipped his head to the side, signaling for Sadie to move over. She did, but not without complaints.

"Lucy gets married and forgets all about where she came from," Sadie muttered. "It's cool. I get it."

She and Lucy looked at each other and discreetly smiled at each other.

"I was just telling everyone that I'm a failure," Lucy caught Dally up on what he'd missed. He rolled his eyes, tired of hearing the same story over and over.

"You ain't a failure," he said. "Didn't ya hear what your old man said? He went to school with some guy named Dean who probably recognized your name, and since he hates your old man's guts, he didn't let you in."

"Not a guy _named _Dean. _The _dean. The dean of admissions. It's a job at the school. He and my dad … ugh, never mind."

They almost smiled at each other, and everyone else in the room (apart from Sadie and Soda) was bewildered by what they saw. Dally had never reassured anyone of anything before—not even himself. With Lucy, he was different. It wasn't an overwhelming difference, but it was noticeable. It only grew more noticeable each day.

"Isn't it a good thing you didn't get in, though, Lucy?" Carrie Shepard asked. She was sitting on the floor, not quite next to Ponyboy. A copy of _The Stranger_ rested between them, as Carrie had just finished it and figured it would be a good one to give to Pony.

"Why would that be a good thing?" Lilly asked. She was standing in the corner, trying to stay as far away from Two-Bit as possibly, though it pained her to do it. "That was all she wanted outta life, and now, she doesn't get to have it."

"Yeah, but she knew she couldn't afford it. Now, she don't have to worry about it. Tulsa's givin' her a full scholarship."

"Come on, Carrie," Ponyboy said. "You know that's not how it works. I know I can't go to a fancy school or nothin', but if I applied and didn't even get in, I'd feel awful, too."

Lucy nodded. Admittedly, part of her was glad not to be going to Bryn Mawr. For as close as it was to Philadelphia (her kingdom to get farther North again), she knew she would have lost her mind living there, even if she could afford it. And after all, she was sure Dally wouldn't go with her, even if they did have an understanding now. He would hate it out there. It was too twee, and if there was anything that could screw him up more than roughness, it was the twee. She kind of liked him in the rough, anyway.

"It's my own hubris," she said. "My own tragic flaw. I applied to Bryn Mawr thinking I could get in from a high school in Tulsa, like there aren't other girls with high GPAs out there. I barely have connections. My dad's a scholar, but he's not a booster. And we know what matters more than knowledge."

Her words cast a sudden (but constant) pall on the group. Of course they knew. There weren't even that many of them, and they took up more space than was in the whole house.

"I thought it would be my big Brando moment," Lucy said. "Coulda been somebody! Now I'm just some girl who didn't get into a liberal arts college. I married Dallas Winston, but I didn't get into a liberal arts college."

It was too obvious for anyone to make a joke about it. Dally looked at Lucy again, making that face that was almost a smile but didn't quite know how to be.

"You're still somebody," he said.

"Yeah, your wife."

"Don't push it."

Eventually, the atmosphere became too bizarre, yet no one could think of the right questions to ask. Sadie and Soda had insisted this was a good match all along, even when Johnny and Jane had their doubts (especially Johnny). That didn't matter. None of it seemed real. They all knew Dally could do decent things, like beating the hell out of the Socs who almost killed Ponyboy and going to jail for Two-Bit, but they never figured him for sitting pretty on the couch with a girl he called his wife, reassuring her that she was still worthwhile even if she didn't get into a fancy college. It was straight out of _The Twilight Zone_.

Then again, none of them had seen him secretly read passages from the book Lucy was reading at the time so he could nod along with the talks she had with her old man in the evening. He didn't even want Lucy to know about that because he didn't feel like listening to her rag on him for caring. And it wasn't that he cared. That was too strong a word. He was just bugged by the fact that he had to sit there and listen to them talk about how big of a jackass this "Mr. B" guy was without him knowing what any of it meant. They also didn't know that the more he read in that book, the more worried he got that Dr. Bennet thought _he _was Mr. B. He didn't want to be the bastard who kept a girl locked up in a house so she'd screw him. Did he?

They didn't know any of that, and it was probably better that way. Dally didn't have time to explain why he was doing the things he was doing these days. He hadn't even let himself in on the whole truth yet.

"Well, I think it's great you got a full ride to Tulsa," Darry said. He walked over to Ponyboy and lightly kicked him in the leg. Ponyboy looked up, his ego more offended than any other part.

"Maybe you'll inspire this one to keep doin' his homework when he applies in a couple years."

"I'm doin' it," Ponyboy mumbled.

Sadie turned to Dally, feeling oddly comfortable with him. They hadn't spoken much since he and Lucy got married on her dare, but once a guy marries your best friend, it's hard not to treat him at least halfway decently.

"You mind if I steal your girl?" Sadie asked. "Just for a minute."

"Ain't up to me," Dally said.

Lucy pulled herself up off the couch, using her husband's knee as a lever. Before she went off with Sadie, she looked right at Dally with that mock innocence in her eyes. He thought maybe if he were a different kind of guy, he would have loved that look, but for now, he'd settle for being turned on by it.

"A man who lets his wife roam wild?" she asked, pressing her hand against her chest like a Civil War beauty. "We'll have to be sure to keep that a secret. Oh, what a scandal if the town knew!"

"Just go."

She snickered and followed Sadie down the hall, feeling much older and much younger than eighteen at the same time. It was a feeling that almost made her want to cry, but she'd already used up her crying quota for the month when she heard back from Bryn Mawr. For now, she would just go back into Sadie's room, one of her favorite places to be, like nothing ever needed to change.

* * *

Sadie sat down on her bed, and Lucy pulled out the chair from her desk, just like they'd been doing for years. The grin on Sadie's face must have been a mile wide. Lucy couldn't wait to hear what she surely needed to tell her.

"We haven't been able to talk like this in a long time," Sadie said. "It's almost like when you get married, you gotta worry about your husband and all that."

Lucy laughed. It was true—she'd been missing her nights with Sadie something awful. She supposed she could have gone to see her when Dally went out at night, but now that Sadie was going with Johnny, they had less and less time for each other. It felt a little patriarchal, Lucy thought, but real life was patriarchal, try as she and the other budding feminists did to rectify it.

There was something so comforting about being with Sadie. Lucy put on airs for everybody in the world, except for Dally, it seemed, but Sadie came the closest to seeing Lucy for who she really was. She was equal parts tough and silly; kind and arrogant. She didn't need to worry too much about proving her smarts to Sadie because Sadie already knew she was smart. Sadie wasn't interested in Lucy for how many books she'd read or what college she did (or didn't) get into. She was interested in her for … well; Lucy didn't really know why Sadie had agreed to be her friend when they met on that first day of school back in '62. Sadie was promoted a year in English class, and she was reading Salinger when they first met. From that day on, they just kept sitting with each other and talking. They never talked about what made them friends. They just knew that they were. It was the same kind of connection she had with Dally—with her husband. Maybe, she thought, she had two …

She stopped before she could dare think of that hideous phrase. Now was not the time.

"Well, is that all?" Lucy asked. "You called me in here just 'cause you miss me? Why, Sadie Lou, I have to say. I am _flattered_."

"Don't be flattered yet," Sadie said. "I always have an agenda."

She paused a moment, trying to process the chatter that was going on outside her room. As far as she could hear, Darry was ragging on Ponyboy for bringing home an 86% on a trigonometry exam, and Ponyboy was asking him why it mattered, since he was a tenth grader in trigonometry already. Sadie nodded to herself. Good. This discussion would be loud and long enough to distract everybody out in the living room.

"Talked to Johnny last week about my little plan," Sadie said.

"Your plan? The one to marry him as soon as he turns eighteen?"

Sadie nodded. She was smiling; too, like it was something she was almost looking forward to, not just something she felt like she needed to do. She liked Johnny—really, she did. She thought he was kind of cute, and he wasn't too bad to kiss. But she could tell how Lucy felt about Dallas Winston just by looking back and forth between the two of them. She didn't feel that way when she looked at Johnny. They weren't bad feelings. They just weren't whatever Lucy must have felt for Dally. A part of her was sorry about that, but it wasn't a very big part. She liked Johnny, after all, and she knew what she needed to do to make things right.

"That's the one," Sadie said. "And he says he'll do it. I don't know what we'd do after that, but I know it'd get him the hell out of his house. Damn, I wish Lilly were just a little bit older. I hate to think of her livin' there alone."

Lucy didn't know what to say. She would have adopted Lilly if she could, but something told her the state wouldn't have been too keen on an eighteen-year-old girl adopting another girl who was turning sixteen in February, especially when the eighteen-year-old girl was married to a guy with a two-mile-long rap sheet. She'd been trying to talk to Lilly about what happened between her and Two-Bit for nearly a month already, but Lilly (for the first time in her life) didn't want to say a word. Lucy would never push, but even she knew when somebody needed to be taken care of.

"Yeah," Lucy said. "I think Dally feels the same way about Violet."

"Do you see Violet a lot?"

Lucy shook her head.

"No. She dropped by about a week ago. Told Dally that his father really never wanted to see him again. I didn't think it'd be much trouble, considering it's been years since they've seen each other, anyway. But he still didn't look too good the rest of the night."

Sadie smiled at Lucy, absolutely taken by what she was saying. Off her look, Lucy asked her what she was thinking of.

"You're worryin' like a wife," Sadie said, still smiling. "It's almost cute."

"Almost, but not quite."

"You keep tellin' yourself that, babe."

Lucy hadn't realized how much she was smiling. She thought of her college acceptance letter … and her college rejection letter. Maybe Sadie was part of the reason she hadn't even been offered admission at Bryn Mawr. Maybe Dally would have packed up and moved to that twee little town with her, in a perfect world. But even in that perfect world, she knew Sadie wasn't movable. She had to stay put. It wasn't a fun truth, but most truths weren't. At least she could go to college and still walk to Sadie's place if she needed to. At least there was still that.

And then, it dawned on her. Sadie wanted to make sure of that.

"You know, Bryn Mawr wasn't as good as I made it out to be," Lucy said. "The girls there would have been horrified by Dally—more than the girls here, even."

"You don't say."

"Oh, but I'm always saying something. It's my blessing and my curse. And anyway, I heard that if you go without being able to front all the money, they make you wash the dishes. And you know how much I hate it when my fingers prune."

"Y'are awful high-maintenance for the places you've lived. We're worried about you, actually."

"Did I just ruin my own intervention?"

"'Fraid so."

Lucy beamed. Yes, she'd missed this. Yes, this was why she had to stay in Tulsa.

"Worst of all," she said, "they wouldn't have another you."

Sadie looked at Lucy, knowing that she couldn't imagine what a relief that was. She'd spent a year worried Lucy was going to get into Bryn Mawr, win the lottery so she could afford the tuition for four years, meet somebody who spoke better English than she did, and forget all about her. In her heart, she knew that Lucy could never replace her, but now that she knew she wasn't going anywhere … well, that made the thought of an empty seat at the lunch table next year feel a little more bearable.

"Hey, what's goin' on with you and Dally, anyway?" Sadie asked. "Aren't you supposed to find a new place to live by now?"

Lucy paused. Her parents had mercifully extended their deadline until after the first of the New Year, since Dally wasn't earning too much, and nobody would hire Lucy as a waitress on account of she couldn't remember orders very well. As a child, she memorized every state flag, plus every flag in the entire country of Europe, but she couldn't remember if that guy asked for pickles or no pickles on his burger. She picked and chose her battles, she supposed, and while she picked the lesser-known battle, she also picked the one that made a lot less in tips.

"You know, it's funny you mention that," Lucy said. "I think if I gotta live with my mom and dad _and _Dally for another second, somebody's gonna drop dead."

"Really? Who?"

"Well, it's really anybody's guess, but I'm thinking it'll go like this …"

They talked like that for what felt like hours more. Sadie had made an excellent point earlier that evening. Lucy might have been married now, but that wasn't an excuse for her to forget where she came from.

* * *

"Wake up, will ya?"

Lucy jolted awake, realizing she'd fallen asleep in her government textbook. It was the week of final exams, just before Christmas vacation at school, and she was fretting about her tests for no good reason. She knew Tulsa wasn't about to revoke her full scholarship if she didn't keep straight _A_'s in her senior year, but she also couldn't make herself not try in school. After all these years, doing well in school kind of became her purpose in life. It felt a little sad sometimes, but it was better than causing destruction and mayhem all the time …

And as she thought of destruction and mayhem, she saw the events personified hovering over her. Dally. She groaned and put her face back in the book, hoping the Federalist Papers would give her some wisdom about what to do with him.

"Go away," she said, her voice muffled by the musty textbook pages. "I'm busy."

"You ain't as busy as I been," he said. "I promise ya that. Now, get up, throw your coat on, and lessgo. I got somethin' to show you."

"If this is another one of those times you say you have something to show me, and it turns out that you just wanna screw on the couch while my folks are out, I swear I'll …"

"Calm down, Bennet. 'Less you want to, of course. We can spare a little time if that's really what you want."

She slammed her book shut and followed him out the door. He chuckled as they made their way down that familiar skinny stairway once more.

"Believe me, once ya see what I found," he said, "there'll be plenty of that to go around."

They walked for quite awhile until they happened on a tiny store near the indoor movie theater Ponyboy liked to go to when it was too hot or too cold outside. Lucy scrunched up her nose, trying to figure out if this was really where her husband (her husband, _Dallas Winston_) had taken her.

"Great Books," she read the awning. "Are they … why are they saying they have great books?"

"It's a bookshop," Dally said. "Haven't ya been here before?"

"Of course I have. Loads of times. I just figured it had to be something different now, since you're the one bringing me to it."

He rolled his eyes, grabbed her hand, and dragged her inside. Of course, he wasn't really dragging her. She only made it seem that way. Lucy was too much like him, and if she was going in some place, it was because she wanted to.

Much like Lucy's bedroom, Great Books was covered wall-to-wall in … well, in books. Not all of the books were great, but the store had a pretty large section of popular Victorian paperbacks for Lucy to really get into. There wasn't much room for anything else but books, except for a little desk and cash register near the front. The owner of the shop was named Eddie, and Lucy knew him fairly well, on account of spending hours in the store over the summer when Sadie was too busy to go out with her. Eddie was a skinny man with thin brown hair and thick glasses (the exact bookshop stereotype—Lucy loved it.). He leaned over the counter and waved right at Lucy, who happily walked up to him.

"Why, hi, Ms. Bennet!" he said. "I didn't believe this kid when he said he knew you."

"Believe it, Eddie," Lucy said. "He does more than just know me. He's married to me."

"That's what he said, but I had to hear it outta you 'fore I believed it. Did he tell you what he and I talked about earlier today?"

Lucy looked at Dally, puzzled. It was hard to picture Dally walking into Great Books on his own, much less having a full conversation with Eddie the owner. Eddie loved reading about _Beowulf _as much as Dally loved acting like Grendel. How was Eddie still walking around after that?

"You ever notice what's over this place?" Dally asked.

"A roof? The sky?"

"Don't be cute."

"Too late. I think you know it, too."

Dally sighed to keep from laughing. It was easier to pretend he was annoyed with her.

"There's an apartment," he said.

Lucy's eyes nearly popped out of her head. If she could read context clues (and after all this time, she knew she could), it sounded an awful lot like …

"Wait a minute," she said, trying not to get excited. "Are you trying to tell me…?"

"There's an apartment above this place, and you're gonna live in it."

Lucy wanted to jump up and down and throw her husband into some kind of marital kiss, but she didn't. She knew he would hate that and take back his offer. Instead, she just stood there, arms folded across her chest as though she was trying to keep all of her positive feelings trapped inside of her, nodding over and over again.

"Great," she said, her voice shaking with contained excitement. "That's … that's great."

"You gotta start workin' here, though," Dally said. "Soon as Christmas is over, you start sellin' books to anybody who's lookin' for 'em. Even people who ain't."

"So, like you?"

"What I say? Don't be cute."

"I try not to be, but this was just the face I was born with."

Dally paused again, still trying not to laugh at her. With her. What was going on? Why had he gone out and gotten her a bookshop to live in? He hadn't done it for her. He was just walking around, and he saw that there was a place with an apartment over it. He'd have gone for it even if it were a fucking gas station. Anything to get out of Bennet's folks' house, where he always felt like he was being watched. He didn't get her a bookshop apartment because he knew she would like it. He got it because it was the first thing he saw, and there was no point in trying harder than that.

That was what he told her, anyway. And because she tended to believe in the most pessimistic of things, she'd bought it—hook, line, and the proverbial sinker.

When he took her up to their new apartment, she exhaled to keep from squealing about how much she loved the place. It was smaller than her parents' house, but it was noticeably larger than the room they'd been sharing up to this point. There was a pretty big window near the bed—perfect for her sunlight readings. It was a little dusty, and Lucy couldn't help but wonder if there had been rats in the place before. Yet, none of that really seemed to matter. This was her place. Even if Dally decided not to stay, it was her place. She felt it.

She turned to him, and before she could say anything, he cut her off.

"This ain't all for you," Dally reminded her.

"I know."

"It was just the first place I looked 'cause I'm sick of livin' with your folks, and I didn't want to be lookin' for too long. But don't say I never got you nothin'."

Lucy nodded and pulled him onto the mattress that the previous tenants had left behind (and for good reason—there was a menacing dust cloud as soon as they made contact with the surface). He smirked as if to say it had been awhile since he'd gotten laid on such a dirty mattress, but this time, it was her turn to cut him off.

"I love this," she said. "I don't even care that it's a strong word. I love it. And you _did_ get it for me."

"Only sorta."

"Doesn't matter. You did it, and you know it. And since you got me something you knew I'd like so much, I wanna return the favor."

He pursed his lips into one of those almost smiles again.

"And how were you gonna do that?" he asked.

"Well, I had a couple of ideas," she said, reaching around his waist. "You tell me which one you want first."

"I think the one you're startin' right now is a pretty fuckin' good choice."

"Yeah, me too. But just for that, you're getting the story first."

He groaned in disappointment, but she assured him he would like this one. He said he doubted it, as most of her stories ended in getting some high marks on an essay or having a laugh with her old man or some other thing he couldn't relate to. Lucy shook her head.

"Not this one," she said. "This one, you'll get. I think it explains why you like me so much."

Dally didn't say anything, not even to protest. It wasn't worth it to pretend as if he didn't like Lucy because both of them knew he did. And yet, it wasn't worth it to tell her so out loud, either. She'd just gloat.

"I'm gonna tell you the truth about why I carry a book with me everywhere I go," Lucy said.

"But I already know why you do that," Dally said.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. It's 'cause you're square. Or you're tryin' to be. I don't know a lot of square chicks who threaten Tim Shepard with a busted bottle in the park."

"See, that's it. That's exactly it. I carry around a book to keep me from beating the life out of people. And as a matter of fact, it's a court mandate."

Dally looked at Lucy like he'd never met her before, and in fact, he wasn't sure he had. He knew Bennet better than he knew almost anybody, but that wasn't saying much. Dally's idea of being social was knowing somebody's name, which he couldn't say about many people. He knew Lucy's name and that she loved some book about floss, and that surely counted as deep intimacy. But this? How could she have left this out for so long?

"You finally have an interesting story," he said, "and you wait months to tell it?"

"Well, I can't reveal everything too soon," she said.

"Stop stringin' me along, Bennet."

"Right. Sorry. So, it was about five years ago. I'd just turned thirteen, and Kennedy had just won the election. I, of course, was thrilled, since I'd have voted for him if I was old enough. I swear to you right now, if Nixon ever runs again, I'll …"

"Get on it with it."

"Right. So, at the time, we were living in this tiny town in Northwest Ohio. Real conservative-like. Hicks, really. There was a university out there, if you can believe it, so that's where Dad was teaching at the time. But we were about the only progressives who lived there. I was very vocal about my support for Kennedy during the election, and the day after he won, some boy came up to me during lunch and asked how I felt about dying in a nuclear war. It was … _woefully_ misinformed, but I'd had enough. I was already getting picked on left and right in school for …"

She paused, not sure whether or not she should tell Dally about it. He'd seen her naked enough times to know she wasn't exactly Pattie Boyd, but that didn't mean he had to know she was insecure about it. It didn't mean he had to know that she'd been insecure about it since the same boy from the Kennedy story used to snort like a pig every time she sat down in homeroom. She knew it wasn't even true (that it was just a dumb kid from a long time ago who loved to hear the sound of his own voice), but it didn't change the fact that she thought about it every time she took off her dress. Lucy didn't need Dally to know any of that. She may have loved him, but she couldn't be that vulnerable in front of him. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it was true.

"Well, he was a dumb kid," Lucy finally spat out. "Anyway, I just couldn't take it. I stood up, beat him to a pulp, and before I knew it … handcuffs, baby."

"You were arrested?" Dally asked, somewhere in between incredulous and impressed. "You?"

"Looks you married a broad with priors after all."

Dally let out a low laugh. He was impressed now. He'd always known Bennet could be tough, but he never thought she'd ever acted on it. He would have killed to go back in time and watch her wail on a kid who was really asking for it.

But that was the difference between him and Bennet, or so he thought. While he just liked to jump kids (or anybody) for the hell of it, she always had a good reason. Maybe she was defending women's rights, which she talked about all the damn time. Maybe she was defending herself. Either way, she was always trying to stick up for somebody when she acted out (or wanted to). He didn't have that in him. Lucy could beat people up to protect the innocent. Dally just beat people up so that he never stopped moving.

"Who knows about this?" he asked.

"My folks," Lucy said. "And you, now. I never even told Sadie."

Dally shrugged, although he knew what a big deal that was for Lucy. She ran and told Sadie Curtis just about everything. It was probably why the kid blushed every time she saw him these days. No use in complaining about it now.

"I got let off in a couple of hours on account of being thirteen and a girl," Lucy continued. She snorted at that one. It never made sense to her. "Judge looked at me and asked if there was anything I liked to do that would keep me from getting into fights with boys at school, considering my teachers told him I liked to yell at them in classes if they made me mad. I said I liked books. He said that sounded like a plan, and from now on, I'd have to take a book with me everywhere I went and read until the impulse passed."

"That ain't real."

"It is too real. Ask my folks if you don't believe me. It doesn't always work. Sometimes I bust a bottle or pick up a lead pipe and think about doing some real damage. But you'll notice, I go right back to my book as soon as I realize what I'm doing."

Dally looked at Lucy, and for the briefest flicker of a second, he understood exactly why it was he'd stayed married to her. It wasn't her body, though he had to admit, that was one of the upsides. He could tell Lucy herself wasn't so jazzed about the body she had, and he could tell her that it was enough for him. But he knew it wouldn't make a difference. She'd just yell at him for trying to … what was it she said last time he tried to tell her what he thought she should wear to school? "Prescribe masculine ideals onto the feminine experience." Whatever _that _meant. (He was pretty sure he knew, but it was cooler to pretend he didn't.)

It wasn't that she was some good girl who stuck around so that the bad guy could learn from her, either. It was that she wasn't a good girl at all. She was as bad as he was—just as angry and just as impulsive. The only difference was that Lucy was better at controlling herself. When he looked at her, he saw … he saw …

He wasn't sure what he saw, exactly (or at least he didn't want to be), but he knew it looked just enough like him. It looked just enough like him to get him to stay. He let out another low laugh and moved closer to her.

"You got real problems," he said. "Anger problems."

"You say that like you don't have them."

"Oh, no, I know I do. I'm just …"

He stopped. He didn't want to tell her that he was impressed out of fear that it would make him look weak, like a mess, like a guy who was in love with his wife. Besides, he didn't need to tell her any of that. She was smart. She could figure it out.

"Where's my other half of that thank-you gift, huh?"

Lucy smirked. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear (like she did when she was nervous, but Dally never would have told her that he noticed it about her) and stuck her tongue in between the tiny gap in her front teeth. It wasn't terribly attractive, but she thought it was, so he went with it, too.

"It's coming," she said.

"Don't be cute."

"Yeah, see, we've talked about this, and I'm really not able to control that."

He rolled his eyes, but it was only to keep from laughing at (Was it _at_ or was it _with_?) her again. There was nobody else in the world he'd live in a whole bookshop with. Just Bennet and her motor mouth. Just Bennet and that bright red lipstick that smeared all over the place. Just Bennet and the way she yelled at pens if they ran out of ink when she was writing. Just Bennet.

He wouldn't tell her any of that. It wasn't that he didn't want her to know, exactly. It was that he knew, somewhere, that he didn't need to say anything out loud. She could figure him out just by looking at him.

He'd found the apartment above the bookshop for her, after all.

* * *

**Don't you just love embarrassingly bad intertextuality with **_**Beauty and the Beast**_**? I feel like I should disclaim the fact that Disney owns that library scene, since it's basically what happens here ("If you like it that much, it's yours!"). God, I know I said there would be less froth, and believe me, we're coming to that point, but … I can't help that I spent college studying a lot of comic literature!**

**With that, the next chapter has a bit of a time jump. The real center of this story happens in Lucy's first year of college, so I'm trying to get there while still making sure I'm not missing any important developments. As some of you know, I've been researching the hell out of how to write a good redemption arc, and it's … well …**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. The book that Dally is secretly reading parts of to understand Lucy and Dr. Bennet is **_**Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded**_**, by Samuel Richardson (1740). It's your classic "Virtuous girl redeems an awful rake" story that I hope I subvert here. Yikes.**


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of Lucy's final year in high school had gone off without a real hitch, except for, of course, her getting hitched two weeks after her eighteenth birthday. She worked at the bookshop and managed to keep up her grades in school, out of an unreasonable anxiety that Tulsa would revoke her scholarship if she earned an_ A _minus on even one quiz. By the time graduation rolled around, she learned she was ranked third in the class. People congratulated her, especially her friends, but she was pretty miffed about it. Graduating third in the class meant that she wasn't entitled to give a speech at the graduation, which was all she really wanted to do.

"Why would you wanna stand up there and talk to a bunch of people you don't even like?" Dally asked her one night as she was closing up Great Books for Eddie.

"It's not that I like them," Lucy said. "It's just the principle of the thing. Standing up there—up above everyone who's ever treated me or my friends like trash. It would just be too poetic."

"You and your poems." He looked down at a copy of a newer book Lucy had been reading. Something called _Ariel_. She'd had it for a few months now, and she couldn't stop reading it and rereading it. He would have checked it out behind her back, too, but he still couldn't bring himself to read anything with "Sylvia" on the cover. That, too, was the principle of the thing.

"Yeah, well, instead, I gotta sit in the crowd with the rest of them," Lucy said. "I don't get to give a speech about how successful I'll be and how glad I'll be to forget them all by the time July rolls around. Worst of all, I don't get to write it in a way that goes above their heads. I could have insulted them all, and they wouldn't have even known they were insults."

"Thought you were workin' on this. Thought you didn't want to be a know-it-all anymore."

"I don't. But this would have been my last chance to call out a bunch of high-school kids on their absolute bullshit. You wouldn't have let me pass that up, would you?"

"I'm done talkin' to you now."

It was a few nights before the graduation, and Dally still hadn't decided whether or not he was going to show up. It wasn't like he wasn't proud of Lucy for getting herself out of that hellhole. In fact, he almost was. What neither of them wanted was for him to show up only to be inundated with a bunch of questions about why they'd gotten married, why they'd stayed married for all this time, and why they hadn't seen him get busted for anything lately.

There were answers to all of those questions, of course. They'd gotten married on a stubborn dare, which people knew and had begrudgingly accepted, once Lucy never turned up to homeroom pregnant. They stayed married not to annoy the twins, but because they respected the company of a like-minded individual. Dally hadn't been busted for anything lately not because he wasn't doing anything he could have gotten busted for—just three days earlier, he'd swiped a six-pack from the store, much to Lucy's chagrin—but because he was doing it less often. As it turned out, being married to Lucy Bennet was awful distracting. Sometimes, when he wanted to go out without her, she'd catch him at the door and ask him some stupid question, like where he put her other shoe (He hadn't even put it anywhere. She'd hidden it and made him go looking until he got tired.) or something else that was just as stupid.

Of course, _stupid _wasn't really the right word, and he knew that. She was being smart. He just wasn't a nice guy.

He mentioned that to her one night before she fell asleep, which jolted her right awake. She told him that she didn't think he was a bad guy.

"I'm not a good guy," he said.

"I didn't say that either," Lucy said. "I used to think there were good guys and bad guys. Now I think there are just guys. A few men. But mostly guys."

He wanted to ask her the difference between a man and a guy, but he didn't. He didn't want her to know that he was interested in what she had to say. That didn't matter. She could always seem to hear what he was thinking and could fill in the blanks without him needing to do a thing. It was a bizarre match but a match nonetheless.

As Lucy closed down Great Books, Dally picked one of them off a shelf and asked her if she knew anything about it.

"It would help if I could see the cover," she said and walked over to the book he had in his hand. She squinted.

"Why do you want to know about _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_?"

"Dunno. Cover's stupid. You ever been to Brooklyn? It don't look like this. This looks…"

He was going to say it looked nice, but that was one of those words he never said, unless he was talking about Lucy's eyes (and even then, it was only when she couldn't hear).

"Well, it's a good book," Lucy said. "They made a lot of copies of it for the soldiers in the Second World War. I remember reading something about that. It's about … well, the thing that jumps out at me is the father who drinks himself to death after finding out his wife is pregnant, but that might just be because the parents' names were Johnny and Katie. That's kind of a strange image in retrospect."

"Yeah. Johnny likes Sadie, don't he?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Sadie like Johnny?"

"Yeah. I think so, anyway. They've been going together for a long time."

"Longer than we been married."

"To be fair, we got married two weeks after we realized we didn't _completely _hate the piss out of the other, so that's not saying much."

He let out another low laugh—the kind that told Lucy that Dally didn't want to talk anymore. They were quiet for a long moment. Dally kept staring at the book, and she couldn't get a read on why. He'd never looked at any one thing for this long—not even her.

"Cover's stupid," he repeated.

Lucy nodded. She never quite figured out what really made him single out _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_, but when she would think back to the moment some months later, it felt almost fateful.

* * *

Dally didn't go to the graduation. Lucy pretended like it was fine (like she understood what he was trying to avoid), but Sadie and Soda knew it wasn't. Once she made her way back into the crowd, dummy diploma in hand (They wouldn't give out real ones until they got the disgusting rented gowns back.), they asked her how she really felt about his absence.

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you," she said. "It's fine. Can you imagine him sitting through two and a half hours of this without blowing his brains out? I can't, even if I am married to him. It's nothing. We talked about it. It's cool."

But the twins just looked at each other, not sure of what they could say to make Lucy feel better, if they could say anything at all. Sadie grabbed her hand, told her she sure did look nice, and if she'd been the one giving a speech at graduation, it would have sounded much prettier than the "Follow your dreams" crap the real speakers said. She pulled Lucy away from the sadness she must have been feeling. It worked to get swept up in all that love and attention for a moment, but that moment was inevitably fleeting. It didn't change the fact that Dally was still the kind of guy who couldn't be bothered to show up on a day that mattered to a person who was supposed to matter to him. He'd shaped up a little since marrying and getting to know somebody who loved him, though that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that he wasn't kicking as many kids' heads in or that he was spending all his time with one woman instead of the carousel of girls he used to ride. He wasn't there, she wanted him to be, and yet, she knew she couldn't ask him that. He was still too much _Dally_.

And if Soda could do something about that, he would.

He'd been to Lucy and Dally's apartment above Great Books plenty of times. He rushed over there, knowing Eddie wouldn't close up shop until six on a Friday. Dally didn't know Soda was coming, and he'd have to get the owner to let him in if this was going to work. Thankfully, Eddie recognized him from the last time he and Jane had come to visit Lucy, and thankfully, Dally was upstairs. Soda thanked Eddie for the information, but he hadn't needed it. He'd known Dally since he was a little kid, and tonight wasn't one of those nights he went out to mess things up. Tonight was one of those nights he stayed in and planned how badly he was going to mess things up in twenty-four hours. That was how low he must have been feeling.

When Dally answered the door, his face fell into a frown. Soda, however, was grinning from ear to ear. If only Dally knew what he was in for.

"I thought you was gonna be Bennet," he said, disappointed. "She forgot her key."

"Surprise. Soda."

"Yeah, I can see that. You wanna tell me what you're doing here all by your lonesome? Where's your blonde?"

"Jane's at the graduation with Steve and Lucy. You remember Lucy, don't ya? Real pretty girl. Real smart, too. They call girls like that a catch, but I heard she's married. You hear anything about that?"

"Shut up."

Dally went to close the door on Soda's face, but Soda blocked it and forced it back open, all with one hand. If Dally hadn't been feeling so angry, he might have congratulated Soda for being able to wrestle him like that. Instead, he just gritted his teeth and prepared to win a fight.

"Were you always this big a pain in the ass?" Dally asked. "What are you doin' here, man?"

"What are _you _doin' here, Dally?"

"I wasn't goin' to that football field. Me and Bennet talked about it. It's cool."

"That's what she said, too."

"Good. Now, could you please go away?"

He tried to close the door on Soda again, but the kid held the door open again. A year ago (hell, a month ago), Dally would have broken his jaw for what he was doing, but there was a voice—a woman's voice—in the back of his mind telling him that it was worth it to stick around and find out what was going on. Curiosity, the voice said, is important.

_Who the hell…?_

"I ain't goin' nowhere," Soda said. He tried to keep his voice firm, but it was shaking. How could it not? Nobody talked to Dally this way. "You wanna know how I know you're the one who told Lucy to say it was cool that you didn't show?"

Dally didn't say anything. He wasn't going to dignify Soda with a response. He learned that phrase from …

"'Cause I never heard Lucy said 'It's cool' before tonight," Soda said, "but I hear you say it all the time."

Without even really knowing he was doing it, Dally swung the door open a little wider and allowed for Sodapop to stand closer to him. He remembered that look in Bennet's eyes when they (he, they, she, they, he, really) decided he wouldn't go to the graduation. He hated that look, so he closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see it. She was bothering him. She was asking for things she knew he couldn't give her. He'd already found her this stupid apartment. He'd already married her to keep her from looking chicken. He'd already stayed married to her against his better (better?) judgment. Nobody gave him that look. It was an annoying look. It made him think … no, he wasn't thinking …

"Do me a favor and go home."

"No."

"Why do you bother fightin' Bennet's battles?"

"I'm as close to Sadie as I am to me. Lucy's her best friend. Makes her mine, too."

Dally tightened his grip on the doorframe again, trying to shut Soda out, but he kept standing in the way. When did Soda decide to get wise, anyway? He knew that what he was about to say was cruel, but he didn't care. From where he stood, in that hour, it needed to be said.

"You know what I think?" he said. "I think Jane ain't enough for you. I think you're tryin' to use my wife to outdo whatsername. The one who made a cuck outta you."

That about did it for Soda. Any fear or respect (and it _was _respect—he couldn't make any mistake about that) he had for Dally immediately vanished, replaced by rage he'd spent too long repressing for everybody else's sake. It was almost funny, and some time later, he'd laugh about it (albeit sadly) to himself. Of course the one time he broke, he broke on the guy who could flatten him in about three seconds—maybe less. He lunged for Dally, who quickly started to throw a punch, but Soda, by the grace of God, was able to block it. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen, and in the past year, he'd seen some pretty strange things. Dally's guard wasn't all the way up. _Dally's guard wasn't all the way up_.

Why wasn't Dally's guard all the way up?

He must not have wanted it to be.

Why wouldn't he have wanted it to be?

Soda thought he might have a guess or two about that, but he let it go. He had more pressing business to take care of. He grabbed Dally by his shirt (_Why was he letting him do this? What could he have been getting out of it?_) and looked right into his eyes. Though Dally stared back at him with that "I dare you" look in his eyes, it was weaker than usual. He could have slipped out of this hold and made Sodapop go flat all too easily, but he just didn't want to. Why didn't he want to? Why did he want to stand here and endure the kid's empty threats?

"I'm not even gonna touch what you just said 'cause you know it's a crock of shit," Soda said. "And I don't know why you're lettin' me do this, but I'm gonna tell ya what. When Lucy gets home tonight, you're gonna say you're sorry for not showin' up tonight."

Dally said nothing. He'd never said he was sorry for anything. As far as Soda could remember, he'd never even said it sarcastically—maybe once, when Sadie was pestering him about not talking to Lucy at the Dingo that first night he was let out of jail back in October. None of that mattered anymore. He would say he was sorry to Lucy that night.

"You can't prove I'll do it," Dally said.

"Naw, but I'm pretty sure you will."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. Know why?"

"I'd love to know, really."

"'Cause you don't wanna go through this again."

Dally snorted. The contempt was back, and for once in his life, Soda was glad to hear it. That meant things were going back to their natural way.

"You ain't a threat to me, kid," he said. "I can get outta this whenever I want."

"I know. That's not what I was talkin' about. And for the love of … will ya stop callin' your wife _Bennet_? She's got a pretty first name."

With that, Soda let go of Dally's shirt and backed away, closer to the staircase to get the hell out of there. As he walked home that night, he was pretty sure that putting his life on the line for his twin sister's best friend hadn't been worth it. Dally would do whatever he wanted. He wasn't scared of anybody; let alone Sodapop Curtis, the guy who was ready and willing to admit he cried at the end of _Doctor Zhivago_. It didn't matter if Soda threatened him with violence or more talking and more thinking. Dally wasn't scared of anybody, and Soda was a damn fool for even thinking he could pull a fast one on him.

But a few nights later, when he overheard Lucy tell Sadie that Dally had muttered something that sounded like an apology about not being at the graduation, Soda knew he had managed to do his job.

Why had he lived to tell the tale?

* * *

After Dally's haphazard apology about not showing up to the graduation, things weren't half bad between him and Lucy. In fact, either of them would have ventured to say that things between them were almost all the way _good_. Lucy was working long (yet enjoyable) hours at Great Books, reading as many as she could before she entered her first college-level English course. Dally was riding ponies best he could, and Bennet—Lucy—even came out to watch him every now and then, despite the very clear fact that she hated it. Whenever she did show up, she brought a copy of _War and Peace _with her. When Dally asked her what was so special about that book that it was the only one she ever brought to a rodeo, she said, "It's longer than hell. Keeps me distracted from beating the tar out of everyone there."

The image of Lucy Bennet reading a long-ass book just to fight off her fantasies of fighting with a bunch of drunken cowboys was so powerful and attractive that Dally was almost late for work that night. He didn't care that he had continual access to the same body—the same woman. Once either of them got turned on, there was (almost) nothing anyone could do to turn them off. That was between the two of them.

One day, Jane asked Lucy if her marriage to Dally was really only about the sex, or if she was just telling stories about the sex because it was less personal than the other stuff. Lucy laughed and joked that of course it was only about the sex, and she'd be divorcing Dally as soon as he could no longer get it up or his muscles began to atrophy—whichever happened first. While Jane tried to figure out what _atrophy _meant from her health textbook, Lucy began to think of the things she couldn't tell Jane about Dally—things that were for her eyes and ears alone. She couldn't tell Jane that he'd told her what made him run off to New York when he was a kid. Lucy wasn't even sure why Dally had told _her _about that. She couldn't tell Jane about the time Dally had asked her all those bizarre questions about _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_, especially considering Lucy still didn't know what that was all about. And she couldn't tell anyone about that one night in early spring.

He'd come home drunk, which wasn't terribly out of the ordinary. Lucy didn't love it, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it—not now, anyway. He wasn't ready to hear how she felt about that, though she was hopeful that some day, he would be. But that night was different. When they met on their bed, he started to _cry_. It was the most terrifying thing Lucy had ever seen out of him, and she'd seen him dropkick kids who were nearly half his size before they were … _together _still felt like the wrong word, though technically, it wasn't.

She was never quite clear on why he was crying. Something about _his fault_ and if he hadn't been there then it would have been _his fault_. Lucy thought she heard him say Johnny's name a couple of times. Something about Pony, too. He couldn't still be thinking about the night Johnny almost killed that guy. That was almost a year ago. Before, she was pretty sure that Dally forgot things as soon as they happened. How was he still thinking about it now? He never talked about it. None of them ever did. Sadie once said she thought it might be part of the problem, but Lucy thought that was bull.

And yet, when her _husband _was drunk and crying in their bed, she thought maybe she'd been wrong.

She tried her best to be there for him (_Comfort _was the wrong word, considering who it was she was holding onto.), but he was Dally, she was Lucy, and neither of them was very good at this sort of thing. Supposedly, Lucy was more honest with herself than Dally was with himself. But that wasn't helpful when she was trying to help someone who wouldn't have wanted her help, anyway. Lucy doubted he was even aware of who she was or that he would remember any of this when he woke up. Since she was sure he wouldn't remember it, she decided, for the first time since she'd known him, not to hold back.

"You did what you had to," she said. "You know that. You got there in time. Nobody got hurt. Nobody you … well, Johnny didn't get hurt."

He didn't say anything. He couldn't. His tongue was barely working, anyway, and he wasn't about to try. Lucy took a deep breath, knowing what she wanted to say … knowing she was damned if she said it, but what else could she do? Maybe, if he heard it (There was almost no way he'd heard it before.)… no, that was wishful thinking. There was no power there. They were just words. At the same time, they were _words_, and if words held no power, then what was the point?

"I love you."

He didn't respond. That didn't bother Lucy. She knew he wasn't going to say anything. He was drunk, he was crying, and he didn't know how to love her. She knew it, too—not only because he was rough, but also because she found a crumpled-up piece of paper in their wastebasket. She wasn't sure, but she had the feeling it would have been his break-up letter to her, and that was what it had said. Why hadn't he thrown out the trash?

"I love you."

She must have said it thirty or forty times before they fell asleep.

When they woke up late the next morning, closer to the afternoon, Lucy made the mistake of asking Dally if he remembered anything that happened the night before. She wasn't trying to get him to talk about the crying, as she knew better than to try to force him to be open when he wasn't ready (And yet, she still held out hope that he would be, one day.). He groused at her. Of course he didn't remember. He was three sheets to the wind, and now, he was hung over, so could Lucy please go read the book he put on the nightstand for her in the corner? The one he'd seen her reading before he went out the day before?

As she didn't think it was worth it to argue with him, she rolled out of bed and found the book he had set out for her. She found _Villette _on the nightstand, but she was confused. One of the pages was dog-eared, and it wasn't even the page she left off on. Naturally, she assumed Eddie had borrowed it while she was working, but then, she began to read the page.

_Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth._

Immediately, Lucy closed the book, grabbed her keys, and went to see the only person who could have possibly orchestrated a thing like that.

When she knocked on her parents' front door, her father answered with a big smile, as though he'd known all along that she would be paying him a visit that day. Before he could dispense with the pleasantries, she opened the book and pointed to the line in question.

"Did you tell him about this?" she asked.

"I may have mentioned it to my dissertation director, years ago, when I was finishing my degree," Dr. Bennet said. "_Villette _was a big part of what I wrote. You remember."

"You know I'm not talking about Yale. Did you or did you not steer Dally toward _Villette _by _Charlotte Brontë_? I know him, Dad. He didn't _find it on his own_."

Dr. Bennet exhaled. He didn't know the kid had been listening. He was even more surprised that he remembered, and he remembered just that one line. Then again, maybe it was a good thing he did. That meant he was a better match for Lucy than either he or his wife (or anyone, really, in the world) ever would have thought.

"I may have mentioned there were a lot of characters in old literature with your name," Dr. Bennet said. "In my defense, I had no idea he was listening."

"Did you tell him Lucy Snowe is the character I'm named after?"

"No, because it's not true."

"What do you mean it's not true? That's what you've always told me."

"Yeah, well, I've always fibbed. You're not named after Lucy Snowe from _Villette_. You're named after Lucy Westenra."

Lucy Bennet nearly lost her eyes in shock.

"The trampy vampire from _Dracula_?"

"Lucy Westenra is the best character in _Dracula_," Dr. Bennet said. "She was a tough broad."

"She killed children."

"I'm talking about before, in those letters to Mina. She was neat. You should feel lucky to be named after her."

As her patience faded, Lucy sighed. She would worry about being named after a notorious vampire later. In that moment, the only thing that mattered was why Dally would have known to communicate with Lucy through _Villette_ and why he would have known exactly where to go. The biggest question was why he would have done any of it at all, but Lucy knew better than to ask herself about that. Chances were that Dally didn't even have a reason. He just moved.

"Why would you have guided him to that line?" Lucy asked. "Paul says it to Lucy before he leaves for France, and then he _dies_. They don't wind up together. He _dies_. That's not really my definition of romantic."

"No, as it turns out, _your _definition of romantic is spontaneously proposing to delinquents and marrying them without telling your parents."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at her father, who was having a playful laugh at his daughter's expense. It had been quite awhile since either he or Mrs. Bennet brought up their notable absence at their daughter's wedding. As much as she and Dally insisted it hadn't been a wedding, it never seemed they cared.

"It's not really the context of the line," Dr. Bennet said. "It's the sentiment of the thing. You know that."

"Yeah."

"Exactly. But that's not what's interesting here. I told the kid about that book and that line months ago—when you two were still living upstairs. Do you have any idea what made him want to use it on you now?"

Though Lucy didn't think she could tell her father the whole truth yet, as he probably would have criticized her for not telling her own husband that she loved him until many months into their marriage, she knew. Dally had lied to her. He remembered what had happened the night before. He remembered everything.

Of course, they never addressed it. They just went on like it never happened, though the air was always a little different between them after that. Like every sentence had a subtext they were trying not to trip over.

No. Lucy couldn't tell Jane about any of that.

* * *

On a terrifically hot and rainy night at the end of July, Lucy sat on her bed in an old T-shirt, hair pulled off her face, reading _The Beggar's Opera_ because it made her laugh to picture herself as Lucy Lockit and her husband as ole Macheath. She tried to tell Dally about the play before he left for … wherever he was going, he didn't say … but as soon as she said it was supposed to be a musical, he stopped listening. The transistor radio had been on the background all day and into the night, which didn't bother him, but the word _musical _was enough to send him flying out the door.

She was getting comfortable with the heat, listening to a song she'd heard time and again since its release, muttering the lyrics under her breath.

_Oh, I'm so glad I found you / I want my arms around you / I love to hear you call my name / Oh, tell me that you feel the same …_

Lucy would have settled into the chorus, too, but before she could, Dally swung the door open. The look he gave her made her heart stop—but only a little bit. He was completely sober. He had never looked at her so severely before … like he had something to say, and for the first time, he was going to say it.

"What're you doing back here?" Lucy asked. "I was sure I wasn't gonna see you again until at least …"

"Say it again."

Her blood rushed throughout her body, and her voice disappeared for what felt like forever. When she finally got her voice back, she could only manage one word.

"What?"

He moved closer to her, almost on the bed with her, but not quite. When he looked her in the eye, she felt almost embarrassed. Lucy knew what he was talking about, but she thought she'd get to spend the rest of her life playing dumb.

"That night I came home drunk an' cryin'," he said. "I know you remember. You told me somethin'. Say it again."

"Dally…"

"Lucy, I ain't askin' you. I'm tellin' you. Say it again."

"Did you just call me _Lucy_?"

"Goddamn it, Bennet. Say it again."

She took a deep breath. The Ronettes faded into Barbara Lewis on the transistor.

_Baby, I'm yours / and I'll be yours / until the stars fall from the sky …_

Lucy wanted to overthink it. She wanted to tell him that she didn't know what he was talking about. That had been months ago, and she said a lot of things that night. But it wasn't any use. She remembered, and she knew he did, too. And to think, she thought that if he ever brought it up, she'd be ready for it. As she felt her palms get embarrassingly sweaty, she realized what a load that had been.

It didn't do her any good to overdo it. She knew that, so she just spoke. She wanted to say it, after all. She wanted to say it more than anything.

"I love you."

Dally moved all the way onto the bed now, and when he kissed her, he lacked his usual gruffness. He was almost … Lucy dared not think the word. While every touch the two had shared had been _pleasing_, this was the first that was _pleasant_. They shared a look that, in months of being together (and yes—they were _together_), they'd mastered. She grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head, and before she knew it, she was falling down on her back. Part of her, that logical part of her she could never get rid of, wanted to ask her what had gotten into him … why had he come back here in the pouring rain, as though this was one of those weepie movies she made fun of? Why was she lying here, falling for it?

Maybe it wasn't a trick.

_Who said that?_

"Say it again," he demanded.

"Dally…"

"C'mon. You wanna say it. I can tell."

She sighed.

"You're right."

"You ain't gotta tell me that."

"I love you."

More clothes gone. He still wasn't saying anything. Lucy told herself that she wasn't disappointed. If he was asking her to say it, then, maybe ... no. She couldn't afford to think that way, no matter what a piece of paper said about them.

"I love you."

He didn't even have to ask her to say it now. She must have said it about thirty or forty more times the more they touched—the more they met. No matter what, he said nothing. Her voice got louder and more fraught, and she was glad the shop below them had closed hours ago. This was familiar, and yet, it felt terribly different. If they had been desperate before, this was a level of desperation no one had yet discovered. She clawed at his back to accept more of him, which he willingly gave. All the while, she repeated the same thing over and over. Somehow, it never managed to lose its meaning. After all, it had been sitting there, on her tongue, for almost a year.

"I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you."

He chuckled like it wasn't the first time he'd heard a woman yell out like that. Even if he had, Lucy was certainly the first one to yell it in earnest. He kept going (she asked him to) until he couldn't anymore. Like always, he slid up beside her and kissed her on her bare shoulder because he could—because he wanted to. They didn't say anything for the rest of the night. They just lay there until they fell asleep. While both of them knew they probably wouldn't talk about Lucy's declarations of love in the morning, they did know that something in that room was different. Irreversible. It didn't matter if he never asked her to talk about it again, and it didn't matter if she decided to up and leave him in the morning. After that night, they'd never quite be able to go back to the way things used to be.

Lucy knew. She could feel it in her blood.

* * *

**Well, this chapter … exists! It's the end of what I'll call "Act One" of this particular story. Thank goodness.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. The songs I quote here are "Baby, I Love You" by The Ronettes and "Baby, I'm Yours" by Barbara Lewis, which I obviously don't own, either.**

**I'm about as subtle as a train wreck (and about as original as a Disney live-action remake, apparently).**


	7. Chapter 7

About a week before Lucy was meant to start her classes, Violet Winston showed up outside Great Books with a cigarette in her right hand and a thin slip of paper in her left. When Dally came downstairs to meet her, he wasn't sure what else he'd been expecting. Violet didn't just drop by unless she had a message. Lucy always called her _Mercury _because of that. Dally didn't know what that meant, but he almost liked the way Lucy always giggled at her own joke whenever she said it.

He didn't know what else he expected Violet's message to be, either.

"Uncle Sam don't know you live in a bookshop now," she said.

Dally took the draft card out of Violet's hand, and Violet lit up her cigarette. From behind the counter, Eddie the owner got real squirrelly.

"You can't smoke in here," he said.

"I'm pretty sure I can."

"Books are highly flammable. They're just paper."

"Ya know what else is highly flammable? People, such as yourself. Either I can smoke in here, or you're gettin' burned."

Eddie tried to object, but Violet Winston had such a terrifying look in her eye that he knew it wasn't worth it. She had won. She would always win.

"That's what I thought," Violet said smugly. "Now, you know you gotta let my brother here light up, too. After what he just got, he's gonna need it."

"Ain't gonna do me any good to burn it," Dally said.

"Why wouldn't it? I came to give you that card 'cause I thought you'd wanna burn it. I never thought you'd show up when they asked ya. That ain't you."

Dally shrugged. In truth, he wasn't sure who he was supposed to be anymore. About a month earlier, he and Lucy shared this night, and it made him feel … well, it made him feel. Better (worse?), it made him feel something other than angry. She was telling him how she felt about him, and he was just taking it. He was begging for it. He didn't know what hit him—what made him turn around and ask her to tell him how she really felt—but since then, things hadn't been the same between the two of them. They hadn't been better or worse, necessarily, but they hadn't been the same. There was something hidden underneath every word they spoke to and about each other. There was something hidden underneath every glance they shared. Dally wasn't sure he understood it just yet, but he thought he'd be around to figure it out.

Now, of course, he knew he wouldn't be. He'd have to report since he didn't think it was worth it to dodge the draft for no reason. After all, he wasn't one of those hippies. He'd have to get shipped out like a little box of nothing. It was just as well. Lucy was starting college soon, and she didn't need to worry about coming home to him every night. She'd do better in her classes if she didn't have to worry about him. It wasn't like she'd worry about him if he were in the war. She wouldn't have to since he was pretty sure that if he did get shipped out, he'd die right away. Oh, she might be a little upset for a minute or two. But she'd move on. She was too smart not to move on.

He didn't want to go. He didn't want to leave _her_. She, of course, wasn't allowed to know that. But it was true, and he wasn't going to stop letting himself think it anymore. Not when there was a piece of paper in his hand telling him that he'd have to leave her sooner than later.

Violet noticed the look on her brother's face and rolled her eyes, exasperated.

"Are you kiddin' me?" she said. "You marry this girl for no good reason—for no reason _at all_—and all of a sudden, you're willin' to go to war because she wouldn't like it if you skipped out on the draft?"

"If I got caught, I'd have to go back to jail," Dally said. "And I don't actually like jail very much, if ya couldn't tell."

"Actually, man, I couldn't. You spent an awful lotta time there when we was growin' up. Coulda used you around, but no. Figured you'd rather be there than anywhere else. Was I wrong?"

Dally was quiet for a long time. No, Violet wasn't wrong—not really, anyway. It wasn't that he didn't want to be around her when they were kids. It was that he didn't know how. He'd tried so hard to keep her safe when they were little, but he failed. He ended up on the kitchen floor, bleeding from the head and wishing he'd never done anything. Violet probably didn't even remember that night when the old man nearly killed both of them. She was crying too hard to see. Dally had tried to forget it, too, but he couldn't. It was the night he became afraid. He wasn't afraid of the old man. He was afraid of Violet.

He told everybody that his old man wouldn't let him see her, and that was at least a little bit true. The old man liked the idea of having Violet to himself, which made Dally too sick to come around. He also didn't know how to get her out of there. He didn't want to cry again. Didn't want to end up bleeding on the kitchen floor again. Didn't want to see Violet cry like that again. He'd always wanted to get her the hell out of that house, but he had no way of getting her any help. They were just kids. World-weary kids, but _kids_. There was nothing he could have done, so he figured that if Violet grew up to be anything like him, she'd find her own way out of the old man's house. And in a way, he was right. But he was wrong.

There was a part of him that knew the reason he'd … what was the word Lucy had used before … _imprinted _on Johnny (and a little on Pony, too, but he wasn't going to admit that in his own thoughts, much less in the company of others). She said it was something called _projection_. He failed to protect Violet when she was at her most defenseless, and Johnny was his second chance.

Was Violet the real reason he'd cried that night? Did it have nothing to do with Johnny at all? He stopped the questions. He didn't want to think. He wanted to move. Move toward the draft. When was he supposed to report? He tried to look at the card again, but he couldn't make himself do it.

"If I had to go back to jail, I wouldn't be with Bennet," Dally said. "And I kinda like Bennet."

"Yeah, and if ya went to war, you'd get killed," Violet said. "Then you really couldn't be with her. How's that sound?"

Dally didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe he wouldn't die the minute they dropped him off in the jungle. What was he thinking? Of course he'd fucking die. His lungs were close to worthless, and though he could swing it in a rumble, he couldn't swing it in a war. He didn't know what the difference was, exactly, but he thought it might have something to do with motivation. When he fought in a rumble, he usually had a reason, even if it wasn't a good one. If he fought in a war, he would only be there because somebody told him he had to be. And there was nothing Dally hated more than following somebody else's orders.

He walked over to a stack of books to file them back into the Russian lit section. Lucy had forgotten to do it the night before, and before she left to go spend the day with Sadie, she had asked Dally to do it for her.

"I don't think she'll mind if ya dodge," Violet said, chasing after him as he put the books away. "Really. She kinda likes you, too. Can't imagine she wants ya dead. Well, most days, anyway."

"Don't fuckin' speak for her, OK?" Dally said. "I ain't even told her yet."

"You just found out two minutes ago. Where the hell is she? Ah, don't tell me she's pullin' an old lady on you."

Dally slammed a copy of _Anna Karenina _into the shelf and stared daggers at Violet. She should have known better than to say that about Lucy. She _did _know better, and that was what made it worse. Although Dally hadn't ever crossed his one boundary, he almost considered crossing it for Violet … then he remembered how hard she'd cried in the kitchen that night she was eight years old, and he couldn't do it. Even he had limitations.

Violet drew up her mouth as if she were choking on crow.

"Shouldn't've said that."

"No shit."

Before Dally could think very much about what Lucy would say about Vietnam, the door swung open, and there was Johnny. He was confused since Lucy told him she was going out with Sadie and Johnny that afternoon, and he should meet up with them after he was done finishing up the few things at the store she asked him to finish up for her. Johnny looked a little worried, too, which (to Dally's surprise, but more to Violet's) worried Dally twice as much. It was already bad if Johnny looked upset, but if Johnny, who was supposed to be with Lucy, (his _wife_) looked upset, then that had to mean …

"What're you doin' here, Johnnycake?" Dally asked, thinking maybe if he called him _Johnnycake_, then Lucy would be OK. It wasn't logical, but things like this rarely were.

"I'm lookin' for you," Johnny said.

"You sure you ain't lookin' for a copy of …" Violet picked up a heavy book from the stack Dally was putting away on account of Lucy. "I ain't even gonna pretend I know how to say this."

"Hey, Violet."

"That's more like it."

"What's goin' on, man?" Dally asked. "I thought you was supposed to be third-wheelin' it with Lucy and Sadie."

"I was," Johnny said. "We were just walkin', and outta nowhere, Lucy fell down. Sadie thinks she must've twisted her ankle or somethin'."

"Twisted her ankle? What the fuck was she doin' to twist her ankle?"

"She was readin' a book and walkin' at the same time."

Dally rolled his eyes. That was about the only way he could picture somebody as tough as Lucy Bennet twisting her ankle.

"I told her not to fuckin' do that anymore," Dally said.

"She's done that _before_?" Violet asked.

"It's a long story, and I ain't got time. Johnny, where's Lucy?"

"She's in the hospital with Sadie."

"How long has my wife been in the hospital? How long did it take Sadie to send you over here, huh? Fuckin' Sadie. Thinks she's married to Lucy, too, don't she?"

"Dally, I got here as fast I could. Lucy's gonna be fine. I just thought I'd tell ya 'cause…"

"'Cause you remember I like to know what's goin' on with my wife?" Dally said. "Yeah, sounds like somethin' Sadie told you to say. Sounds like some bullshit."

Johnny looked at Violet as if to ask her what the matter with Dally might have been. He was always ornery, but it was almost never directed at him (and, by extension, almost never directed at Sadie). Violet shrugged.

"He'll tell ya later," she said, quiet enough so that Dally, in his rage, couldn't hear her.

He grabbed his keys from the counter and began to lock up.

"I'm goin' to see Bennet," he said. "Y'all can come, or y'all can stay. I don't give a shit."

Both Johnny and Violet left the shop as Dally locked up, but only Johnny went with him to go see Lucy. Violet muttered something about hating hospitals more than anything in the world, and Dally let her go. She'd done her job for the day, and besides, he didn't know how to handle her when she stuck around for more than a few minutes. He was always glad to see her when she was first there, and then the longer she stayed; the more he was forced to remember … the more his face began to hurt.

He blinked a few times in an attempt to erase the memory, but it didn't work. It hadn't worked since he and Lucy got married. Since he and Lucy got married, he was seeing things he'd thought he'd forgotten … thinking about them, too. He could have resented her for it. Even he knew, however, that it wasn't Lucy's fault. He may have projected his worries about Violet onto Johnny and Ponyboy, but he wasn't going to project anything onto Lucy. She didn't ask for that, and he didn't want to put up with her wrath. After all, it was the only wrath he'd ever seen that could, potentially, topple his.

And for that, he had to admit it to himself. He admired her. Maybe even …

No.

* * *

On his way in, Dally had pictured Lucy sitting up in a hospital bed, getting water in those hideous plastic cups with the flimsy straws and looking like a helpless version of her usual self, but he wasn't disappointed to see that she was just sitting in a chair. She looked a little … she wasn't blushing, but she wasn't pale, either. She almost looked like she might throw up. Then again, maybe she was just sweating. It was the end of August, and it had been a hot summer at that. She was fine. In fact, when she saw Dally amble toward her, she was smiling. Dally couldn't help but notice that there was something a little strange about her smile, but he dismissed it. There was nothing bad she could tell him about a twisted ankle. Those could be fixed.

Why was he thinking like this? Why did it matter if Lucy could be fixed? None of it mattered when the draft card in his pocket was starting to feel like lead. He hadn't even told Johnny about it on the way into the hospital, even though he wanted to. He knew he couldn't tell anyone before he told Lucy. That was just the way it was now.

"You came for me," she said, her voice dripping with that damsel sarcasm she loved so much. "Gosh almighty, you came for me. My hero."

"Don't be cute," Dally said. "How's your ankle?"

"Twisted, just like the rest of me. And the rest of you, if I'm not mistaken."

"What I say about bein' cute?"

"What did _I _say about it?"

Dally rolled his eyes and desperately wished he hadn't left his cigarettes in their apartment. His draft card, however, was firmly planted in his pocket. He wasn't waiting for the right time to tell Lucy, as even he knew there would never _be _a right time, so he figured he'd fish the card out of his pocket and tell her now. Of course, he should have known that she had other plans.

"Aren't you going to ask me what book I was reading?" she asked.

"Why would I ask you that?"

"I don't know. Is making conversation with your wife such a terrible idea?"

He sighed and sat down in the open chair next to hers. It wasn't because he wanted to sit next to her. He'd been standing a long time, it was hot, and sitting down sounded like a smart idea. That was it. That was all.

How was he _still _trying to convince himself that any of that was true? Of course he wanted to sit next to her. She was … well, she sure was Lucy.

"What book were ya readin'?"

"_Frankenstein_."

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?"

"Does this look like my 'I'm kidding you' face?"

"You read that book a hundred times."

"Felt like going for the hundred-first."

He sighed, wishing even harder that he had his cigarettes now. If nothing else, he could have used a nurse yelling at him that he couldn't smoke in there, and he could have used the chance to tell her that he could do whatever he wanted. He needed to feel normal. That would do the trick.

"You're annoying," he said.

"So are you."

Another one of those almost smiles twitched on his lips. He'd never met a girl who was willing to pitch fights with him like this before. They weren't really _fights_, he supposed, but they were something. _She _was something. And now he had to leave her.

"Mary Shelley's preface to the novel just gets to me," Lucy said. She leaned over and grabbed her book; opening it to the page she wanted to read. "Listen to this. 'Once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it.'" I mean, how poetic can you be?"

"I don't know what any of those words mean."

"Yes, you do. _Progeny _is a creation. In this case, the novel. And Shelley … well, she appreciates that exists, but it's … difficult."

"Why are you tellin' me this?"

Lucy's eyes went wide, and for the first time Dally could remember, she was silent. For a reason he didn't quite understand, he figured this was the perfect time to pull out his draft card and tell her that she was in luck.

"Gotta show ya somethin'," he said.

He pulled out the draft card and handed it to her. She took a long look at it, and Dally was surprised by her expression. She didn't look upset. She didn't look happy, either. Instead, she looked … what was the word?

_Peace_. There was peace on Lucy's face. He hated the word.

"You know what that is, don't ya?" Dally asked. "It's what's gonna get you the hell away from me."

Lucy tore her eyes away from the card and stared at him. It was clear she was trying to tell him something, but he had so many thoughts (and he wasn't even embarrassed to admit that they were there) that he couldn't seem to figure out hers. So, he kept talking. Why was he _talking _so much?

"V dropped it off for me today," he said. "Before Johnny told me what happened to you. Me an' V, we were talkin' about it, and she thought I was gonna burn the card. Act like I never got it or somethin'. I don't know. I ain't gonna do that. I don't wanna go, but I don't wanna go back to jail if they caught me dodgin'. I don't know."

Suddenly, the corners of Lucy's mouth turned up into an awkward, almost painful grin. Dally furrowed his brow. He was going to ask her why the hell she made her face look like that, but he didn't get the chance. Lucy's impatience got the better of her.

"You want an excuse not to go?"

* * *

_Dear Lucy,_

Dear? She'd never buy it.

_Lucy_,

That was too personal. He'd only recently started calling her by her first name.

_Bennet_,

Yes. That was it.

_Bennet,_

_ I don't know what you want me to do here. I don't want to get blown up in Vietnam. But I might blow my brains out if I stay here. Fuck you. Fuck me too. No don't bother. That's the problem._

He tore another piece of paper out of Bennet's notebook, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the wastebasket beside him. Bennet was in the bathroom, and from the look of it—no, the _sound _of it—she would be there for some time. All the while, Dally was trying to figure out how to best leave her a note that said something along the lines of, "Fuck this, I'd rather die than stay here with you if this is how it's gonna happen."

He sat on the bed with the notebook, pen hovering over the next blank page where he planned to write his goodbye letter and really stick her with it this time. He was thinking of a good way to phrase it, and then, she came out of the bathroom. He hated how green she looked.

"Well, don't stare," she said.

"I ain't starin'."

"Yes, you are."

"Then what am I supposed to do? I found out about you and the draft in the same fuckin' hour! You think I know what to do?"

"I think I know what you're trying to do."

Lucy glanced down at the open notebook on Dally's lap. He followed her eyes and slammed it shut. She wasn't supposed to catch him writing that letter. It wasn't any of her business.

"Were you expectin' me to stick around?" he asked.

"I thought you might consider it," she said, hating herself for being so honest. Then again, things couldn't go back to the way they were, so she might as well stop trying to preserve them. She might as well drop everything she'd been carrying close to her chest.

_Her chest_. Weren't those things already big enough? She couldn't imagine what they'd look like in four … five … six months. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. That was the one thing she had to keep up for as long as Dally was still in the room. She couldn't cry in front of him. That was sure to get her nowhere.

"What did you really think?" he asked. "Did ya think you could … what? Do some kinda magic on me? Turn me into the kinda guy who's happy about somethin' like this? The kinda guy who stays?"

Lucy didn't say anything. She was too busy blinking quickly, which gave Dally the creeps. He couldn't have known, of course, that she was trying not to cry.

"Hate to break it to you, kid," he said, "but I ain't that guy. I don't even know how to pretend to be him. So, if you could just …"

"No," Lucy said, trying to keep her voice steady. "You're not going anywhere until you hear me."

"I heard ya in the bathroom. That was plenty."

Much to her dismay, Lucy felt her heart sink. She and Dally had bickered loads of times, and he'd called her out on her bad behavior as much as she called him out on his. This was different. For the first time in nearly a year, Dally was being _mean _to her. He was being mean to her, and she couldn't abide by it.

"Shut up!" she snapped. "Just shut up and listen to me."

Dally exhaled and backed off a little. He wasn't sure why he wasn't moving yet, but maybe he was just in the mood for a good fight. Bennet was a good person to fight with. He couldn't explain it. It was just true.

"You're the one who got off easy," Lucy said. "Literally, too. You know I didn't do this to myself. _You _had a grand old time getting me here. I'm the one who's gotta deal with the back problems, the exhaustion … I'm the one who's gotta go out and buy days-of-the-week muumuus. And you …"

"This ain't about me."

"This is _plenty _about you. You're the one who stayed married to me, and if you were going to stay married to me, you should have realized this was possible."

Dally couldn't respond to that. If he were being honest with Lucy or with himself (and he wasn't), then he would have said that of course he considered the possibility. He considered it every time one of them rolled off the other. It scared the shit out of him, and that was why he thought about it so much. He thought about his mother—fourteen, just like Pony had been up until real recently. He thought about her at fourteen, holding him and not knowing what the hell to do with him when all he needed was someone who knew how to play that part. He never found that someone—never learned how to be that for somebody else. Of course he considered the possibility when he and Lucy were in bed. But just because he considered it didn't mean he was happy about it. It sure as hell didn't mean he was going to stay put and pretend like everything was cool. This wasn't cool. Back when they'd first gotten married, Violet said that she couldn't imagine something that was half Dally walking around in the world like it was nothing. And if Violet couldn't imagine it, then neither could he.

"You get the sweet end of the deal," Lucy said. "You got to have a good time on our way here, and now, you don't have to go to war. This is your ticket out. Don't you realize that?"

"If you're so fuckin' smart, how come you don't remember what I said to you that night you dared me to marry ya? Huh? You remember what I said?"

Lucy looked down at the floor, realizing again that in a few months' time, it wouldn't be very easy to do that. She almost started to cry again. Why did she feel like she could cry so often now? It couldn't be what her body wanted from her. That had to be a myth. It occurred to her in that moment that she wanted her mother very badly … only she was sure that her mother would have somebody's head for this one. Probably Dally's. Then again, it seemed to be what Dally wanted, so maybe they'd all win. All, that was, except for Lucy.

"You remember," Dally said. "I said if you was knocked up, then the jungle looked pretty fuckin' good. Gotta be some kinda sign or somethin', don't ya think? Gettin' this card in the mail and findin' out about you on the same day. Makes it real easy to leave you. Only wish ya hadn't fuckin' told me …"

He moved toward the closet, wondering how much of his stuff he could grab in one go, but Lucy's voice stopped him. She wasn't talking to him—just thinking out loud—but it was enough to make Dally stop and, for a reason beyond his understanding, listen to her.

"I guess I'm not surprised that after all this time we spent telling people I wasn't pregnant, this would be the time I really am," Lucy said. "I guess I'm not surprised it's happening now."

"What's so special about now?" Dally immediately regretted the question. He should have just kept moving.

"I'm supposed to start college next week," Lucy said, almost laughing but not quite. "Everything I worked toward my whole life. Just … gone."

Dally almost asked her what she meant by that, but he knew better now. If he wanted to get a move on, he'd have to stop thinking and keep moving. None of that mattered to Lucy. She just kept talking, and Dally just kept listening. Why was he listening? He'd never listened to anyone for half as long as he listened to Lucy. He blamed it on her bedroom voice. Hell, now, he blamed _everything _on her bedroom voice.

"I guess I could make it through the first semester," she said. "I don't have any morning classes, but as it turns out, morning sickness doesn't always happen in the morning. It's four in the afternoon, and I'm already feeling like I could wretch again."

"Keep it away from me," Dally said. He moved toward the closet again, but Lucy's words just kept right on stopping him.

"I don't think I could make it through the second semester," she said. "It'll be colder, and I'll just … maybe I just won't go at all."

That was about enough for Dally. He stepped away from the closet and stood closer to Lucy. The closer he got to her, the more he realized how much her body was shaking … how horrified she must be to know what was going on inside her. And in truth, she was horrified. She was sorry and sad and scared. She was angry that in spite of all the fighting women were already doing, she couldn't decide what to do with her own body. She couldn't get rid of it even if she wanted to. There was a part of her—a big part—that wanted to keep it. Of course, she knew she probably had no other choice, but there was a part of her that was looking forward to it. It wasn't that she thought it would keep Dally around. He wasn't the kind of guy who got choked up over baby shoes. He wasn't like Sodapop. Lucy wasn't sure why she wanted to keep this thing inside of her. Maybe it was because the thing was _hers_, and Lucy had a tough time letting things go, especially once they belonged to her. But it had nothing to do with trapping Dally. She knew she couldn't do that even if she tried.

But what was she talking about? Dropping out of college before she could even start? It was ridiculous. For as long as Dally had known Lucy, she couldn't stop talking about how she just couldn't wait to go to college. In college, her classmates would be smarter. In college, her classmates would care about the books that were assigned, not just pretend they cared about them to score well on the exams. In college, she would be able to study things that mattered. She wouldn't be forced into trigonometry just because it was required. She could learn the things that mattered to her. Lucy had been excited about college since she started high school. How was she so willing to give it up now before she even went to her first day of classes? Was that what it was like to be the woman? Did you have to think about giving away everything you ever worked for just because you found yourself knocked up? Something stirred up inside of him—something like anger, but it was one of those ostensibly rare moments when his anger had a purpose. Before he could even form the words in his mouth, he was speaking them, as if on impulse.

"Put a cork in it," he said, moving toward the bed and sitting down on it again.

Lucy furrowed her brow, still standing in that same spot between the bathroom and the bed.

"What?"

"You heard me. Put a cork in it. I'm stayin'."

For the first time since they'd returned home from the hospital, Lucy felt light. She wanted to jump onto the bed and kiss Dally for coming to her defense like this, but she knew she could never do that. Dally liked their kisses to be mostly his idea. Little did he know, of course, that Lucy was always the one sending him signals from across the way. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. The unspoken thing in the room was the proof.

"You can't be serious," Lucy said.

"I'm serious. Don't make me change my mind."

Lucy snorted, half contentious and half amused.

"You'd rather be here with me," she said, "while I get fat and can't move? You'd rather put up with that than the war?"

"They're kinda the same thing, ain't they?"

She looked to the floor again. As distressed as she was, the chance that Dally might stay was enough to make her feel less alone. Of course, she'd never be alone again, and that was the scariest part. It was the first thing she thought when the doctor came back and told her it might not be a good idea to X-ray her, after all. But Lucy didn't want to appear as though she was even thinking about smiling. If she looked too happy, she knew Dally would change his mind again, walk back over to that closet, and forget she existed … forget he ever begged her to tell him that she …

She bit her tongue at the memory. This was not the memory she needed to have. She needed to forget about that night quickly. Since it happened, Lucy would occasionally go back to it and wish that every night could be more like it. Now, all she did was rue it. She didn't even need to wonder if he felt the same.

"Don't think I'm stayin' 'cause I'm happy about this," Dally said. "I ain't."

"Well, neither am I," Lucy said. It was half of the truth.

"I'm only stayin' 'cause if I'm gonna get my head blown off, it ain't gonna be there. I don't even know what they're doin' over there."

"I know."

"This ain't about wantin' to be some kid's daddy."

"Dally, I _know_."

She better know. She didn't even want him to be this kid's daddy. Oh, he knew she wanted to fuck him on whatever day or night that got them into this mess, but she didn't want him to be her kid's daddy. What would he even do with it? He'd never held a baby. He'd probably drop it (maybe not even on purpose). He couldn't even remember ever speaking to Violet when she was a baby. He couldn't even remember the last time he saw a baby out and about. How was he supposed to stick around and have one of his own? Was this worth not going to Vietnam and dying there? Would he really rather…?

Dally's train of thought stopped as soon as his eyes scanned the big stack of books in the corner of the room. Bennet's books. She'd found out what books she was supposed to be reading in her Intro to English class ("Why do _you _gotta take Intro to English?" he had asked. "Ain't you an expert?"), and she'd stacked them all on top of each other so they were ready to go when the day finally came. That was just last week. She had that look in her eye … the one she got when she was real excited about something. It was one of those looks that Dally almost liked. He hadn't seen it once since they were in the hospital. It almost occurred to him that she was just as horrified about this as he was.

Lucy came around and sat next to him on the bed. They were quiet for a long time as Lucy thought about how nothing would ever be just hers anymore. Her body wasn't just hers. She had to share it with someone she didn't even know she'd invited to share it. Once this thing was born, her time wouldn't be just hers. She'd have to make time to feed it, talk to it, rock it, and put it to bed. When was she supposed to talk to Sadie? When was she supposed to read? When was she supposed to finish her schoolwork in that "Lucy" way she always did? Her eyes flickered over to Dally, who looked more lost than she'd ever seen anyone look. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she knew it would piss him off and send him out the door. Was that really the only reason he was staying? He didn't want to get his head blown off in a place he'd never been? That risk hadn't stopped him before. But his decision to stay wasn't about her, and it wasn't about this thing inside of her, either. He was only staying to keep himself out of the war and to keep himself alive. He was there, but it was in name only. He didn't care about anyone but himself. She had to tell herself that. If she didn't, then she would be …

"How the fuck did this even happen, anyway?"

Lucy was surprised at Dally's tone. He sounded almost … no; she dared not think that word. She'd never used it on him, even in her thoughts … even when it seemed like the right one. She sighed.

"C'mon," she said. "_I _was the virgin when we started screwing around, and _I _know how it happened."

"Don't be cute. I meant I don't remember a time we wasn't tryin' to make sure this didn't happen."

Lucy sighed. She remembered, and she knew he must have remembered it, too. Lucy hadn't realized they'd forgotten to be careful that night. It was so hot, she was so tired, and she was much more focused on telling him over and over that she …

"It wasn't that night you kept sayin'…"

"I don't think it could have been any other night," Lucy cut him off so he didn't have to say it. "That's the only time we didn't. Plus, it was about five weeks ago, and the doctor said I was about five weeks."

Dally rolled his eyes. Of course that was the only time. He wasn't even sure what had gotten into him that night. He'd seen plenty of things that reminded him of _her _before. He almost never felt a thing when he heard "Catch a Falling Star," the stupid song that was playing on the radio when he found her in the bathroom eight years earlier. Mostly, he'd just get annoyed about it—what a stupid song to play when a ten-year-old boy finds his mother's body. But being with Violet when the stupid song came on—and the way Violet looked when she put her hair up—it was too much. He couldn't help but remember how she'd never loved him. She couldn't have even tried. So, he went back to the one person in the world who had ever told him she loved him and meant it. And now, here he was, sitting on their bed, feeling pretty sure that whatever kid was coming out of Lucy would feel the same way about him one day. His folks never loved him. What made him think he could…?

He stopped thinking. Those thoughts weren't even his. They were the thoughts Lucy wanted him to have. Of course they were. They had to be. He never would have thought that deeply unless he was trying to convince her of something. Dally knew how to perform, and by now, he was good at performing what Lucy Bennet wanted out of him. That was it. That was all.

"You gotta shut up about droppin' outta college," Dally said, careful not to look at Lucy when he said it. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

"What else would I do?"

"I said I was stayin'. Gotta make it look like I'm really stayin', don't I?"

Lucy had a million questions, but she was too tired to ask herself any of them. All she could think was that it sure was strange Dally would agree to any of this, even if the war was his only other option. It seemed like an awful lot of work for a charade.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. It was dumb to apologize, and Lucy knew that. She just couldn't think of anything else to say. She was even more surprised when Dally said something back.

"Yeah. Me too."

And though he'd said it with enough sarcasm, Lucy felt that maybe there was a small part of him that meant it.

* * *

**Me, the whole time I wrote this: "Gosh, this has Oedipal vibes ... oh, no, not Oedipal vibes!"**

**Still hoping for better than that. Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. I quote Mary Shelley's **_**Frankenstein **_**here, which is in the public domain, but I wouldn't own it either way.**


	8. Chapter 8

When Lucy was eleven or twelve, and the Bennets were living in Ohio, one of her mother's friends announced her pregnancy as soon as she learned of it. Mrs. Bennet clicked her tongue and asked Lucy if she knew why that wasn't a good idea. As a child, Lucy had no idea, so her mother told her that it was best to wait until after the first three months. That meant the baby was probably healthy, and besides, as a bystander, you'd rather hear six months of pregnancy talk than nine.

Lucy remembered that information until the day she, just two months shy of her nineteenth birthday, learned that she was pregnant. Other married women may have had the luxury to wait three months to tell people. Lucy, as a young woman with very little money, very little idea of how to be a mother, and a husband who could bail at any moment, couldn't afford that luxury. She needed to tell everyone, and she needed to tell them right away.

This, of course, was repulsive to Dally. He didn't want to stand there like an awkward prop while the guys gave him shit for loving without gloving. He didn't want to get into a knockdown, drag-out fight with Dr. Bennet—not because he thought he'd lose, but because it would be so easy to win that it wouldn't even be fun. And he didn't want to listen to Lucy say those same two words over and over again because every time she said them, they became increasingly true. Lucy was pregnant. Lucy was pregnant, Dally had done it to her, and they were both screwed.

Telling Dr. and Mrs. Bennet about it went almost as expected. Mrs. Bennet started praying again before Dr. Bennet told her to cut it out. He asked Lucy if she was feeling OK, and Lucy just said that she was only getting sick as soon as she woke up now. When he asked about college, Lucy firmly said that she was going, so he didn't bother asking about it anymore.

Dr. Bennet's eyes moved toward Dally, who was surprised that he wasn't getting decked. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow at him and calmly asked a single question.

"You're staying with her?"

"Don't really feel like gettin' my head blown off in a war."

"He's a different kind of CO," Lucy said. "He wants to get his head blown off, but he wants to get it blown off on American soil. Some people call that true patriotism."

Dally almost laughed. He probably would have if he weren't so … whatever this was. Same old Bennet. Being clever even though her whole life was imploding.

Bennet and her parents were talking a lot about time and money. Dally didn't listen much, even though he knew that Lucy wanted him to. If he listened, then it would be trying to help Violet all over again. Nothing he could do. If he listened, then there was a chance he was going to get attached. It wasn't that he couldn't get attached to things. He could. He wasn't about to vocalize any of that because the second he did, everything would fall apart. He'd gotten attached to Violet, and he lost her. He could still see her, but it wasn't any use. He'd lost her that night in the kitchen when she was eight, and both of them knew it. Either way, if he got attached to Violet and still regretted letting her down, he couldn't even think of what it would be like if …

No. He hadn't called it _his baby _yet. It wasn't even a baby yet, and he didn't have any claim to it. He didn't want claim to it. That was what he kept telling himself (and telling Lucy, when she was listening).

Every now and then, he'd tune into the conversation.

"You're gonna have to work a couple jobs," Dr. Bennet said.

When was Bennet going to work on school? Wasn't that why he was staying? No. He had to stick to the reason about the war.

"I know," Lucy said. "Eddie said he could give me more hours at the store, but we don't do great business. The good thing about the store is that it gives me time to do my schoolwork."

Mrs. Bennet said something about divorcing Dally to marry a rich man so she could have the baby and go to school, and Lucy replied with something that made her mother very upset.

"I can ask around the university about offices that need secretaries," Dr. Bennet said. "That way, at least you'd have a desk."

Bennet would be the worst secretary of all time. Before Dally could say a word about that, Lucy said it about herself. That was Bennet. She knew what she was good at, and sitting pretty behind a desk pretending to be nice to strangers wasn't it.

"Who's going to watch the baby when you're at school?" Mrs. Bennet asked. She tilted her head toward Dally. "Him?"

Much to his horror, Lucy didn't respond for him. Rather, he felt her eyes on him. He was simultaneously angry and impressed. She was going to make him speak. She was lucky, since she was about the only person who could convince him to do anything. For a second or two, he thought back to that night when he let Sodapop Curtis talk him into apologizing to Lucy for not being at her graduation. What was the matter with him? And why was he answering Mrs. Bennet's dumbass question?

"If I'm gonna stay," he said, "I may as well act like I'm stayin'."

"That would be nice," Mrs. Bennet said, "if I knew what that meant."

If he'd been … a better guy, maybe, he would have yelled exactly what he meant. He would have told Mrs. Bennet that he was staying so that Lucy could go to school. Going to school was what Lucy always wanted, and he wasn't about to get in the way of that. Lucy was one of the only people in the world he could count on. He needed that. It seemed wrong to bail on her when she was one of the only people in the world who would have dropped anything to help him. If he left her, then he was really only screwing himself over. That was how he needed to frame it.

"It doesn't matter what it means," Lucy said. Dally almost smiled again. That was Bennet. She was always jumping to his defense. "He said he's going to stay, and I believe him."

Mrs. Bennet snorted in that formerly middle-class way that Lucy hated so much, particularly because she was sure Dally really hated it. He did, but it was worth it to put up with it if it meant he got to be with Lucy. He was never going to tell her why he liked being with her. She wouldn't even believe it. Even he didn't believe it. But there was something about coming home to the same place, the same bed, and the same woman. It was something he felt like he missed out on before. Maybe in another life.

Dr. Bennet started talking about hours and all the times he could help out and watch this thing when it was finally born. He never directly attempted to include Dally in the conversation, but he did look toward him a few times as if to ask him to jump in. In a roundabout way, Dally almost respected the way that Dr. Bennet was playing it. He must have known that if he pushed too hard, Dally would have gone to Vietnam without looking back. He sure was a smart guy. Maybe that was why they called him _doctor_.

A little while later, Mrs. Bennet pulled Lucy onto the front porch to talk to her privately. Of course, Mrs. Bennet couldn't speak quietly enough to make any of her conversations private, so all that Dally needed to do was hang out by the front door to hear every word that they were saying.

"I just don't know how I feel about you leaving your baby alone with Dallas when you're at school," Mrs. Bennet said.

"Mom, please, relax. We've got months before there's even a baby."

"There's a baby _now_."

"No, there's not. You know how I feel about this. You're not going to change my mind."

Mrs. Bennet sighed loudly. She did everything loudly, and yet, she wondered where Lucy got her mouthiness from.

"Either way," Mrs. Bennet said. "I wouldn't trust him to stand next to a cheap vase of cheap flowers without knocking it down. Can't imagine leaving him alone with a whole baby. I worry you'd come home one day, and …"

"Dally doesn't have the faintest idea what it means to look after a baby, but neither do I. Are you going to forbid me from being around it, too?"

"Lucy, please. You know that's different."

"How? How is it different? Is it because I'm the mother, and mothers are supposed to know how to care for their kids as soon as they're born?"

"Don't pull your feminist card on me. You know that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say that I'm not sure I trust Dallas Winston to help you raise a child. Even if he did stick around, I can't imagine he'd be anything but a bad influence."

Dally found himself nodding along with Mrs. Bennet. It was first time (and likely the only time) he would ever find himself agreeing with a woman who hated him as much as she did. She was giving him a million reasons to pack up and leave without even trying to say goodbye to Bennet. That had been his mistake before. He shouldn't have focused so long on how to say goodbye when it didn't matter. Saying goodbye was worse than just leaving. If you took the time to say goodbye to the person you were leaving, then what you were really doing was giving them a list of reasons why they weren't good enough for you, forcing them to think about it every time your name crossed their mind. In that way, he was grateful that his mother hadn't left a note. That way, he and Violet didn't need to know for certain that it was their fault.

But why wasn't he moving now? He heard the sound of Lucy's voice, and that was the only answer he needed. Since they'd been married, Dally realized he was more addicted to Lucy Bennet's low, dulcet tones than he was to nicotine. All she had to do was speak, and he was hooked. Even when she talked to her mother about that thing inside of her, he had to stay put and listen.

"I don't know if he's really going to stay," Lucy said. "But it's a big deal that he even said he would. A year and a half ago, he would have bolted right out of our place and never looked back. Now … well, he's still here."

"And you don't think that's only because of the draft card he got in the mail on the same day you found out about the baby?"

"I don't know. But you don't know Dally like I do … or at least like I hope I do. If he said he would stay, then he means it. He's not the kind of guy who would do something like that lightly. Trust me."

"I'd like to, honey."

Dally felt that familiar ire begin to course through his veins. Although Mrs. Bennet was right about him, and he would make a nightmare of a daddy, there was almost nothing he loved more than sticking it to people who said he couldn't do something. He'd done it to his old man. That night in the kitchen, Dally's old man said he didn't have the guts to fight him, so he did. If Mrs. Bennet was telling Lucy that she didn't think Dally had it in him to stick around and be some kid's daddy, then he'd have to do it. He'd have to prove her wrong. He'd be betraying himself if he didn't give it a shot. The look on Mrs. Bennet's face would be priceless. He'd have to get a good camera to capture it.

"If he wants to stay, he'll figure it out," Lucy said. "He's a smart guy. If he wants to do something, he can always make it happen."

"I don't doubt that Dallas is smart. But what makes you think that being a father is something he's going to _want _to do?"

Lucy was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, she responded.

"If he didn't at least imagine he might want to, he would have been out the door by now. But he's still here. And that … it says a lot about him that I don't even think he knows about himself."

Dally didn't know how to respond to what Lucy said, so he didn't. What made her think she knew more about why he was staying than he did? Lucy may have known him better than most people (if not better than all people, which was a paralyzing thought), but she didn't know him better than he knew himself. He hadn't stayed because he wanted to be a father. The idea of waking up in the middle of the night to change some baby's wet diaper and to rock it back to sleep sounded hard, and not the kind of hard he was used to getting over. He was only staying to save his own neck. It didn't hurt that he got to keep sleeping next to Lucy, who was getting her chance to go to college, either. But that was secondary. Besides, he'd be surprised if she wanted him to touch her for much longer. He'd heard things about other chicks who got knocked up, and after a little while, it wasn't much fun for the guy. That was what mattered to him. He continuously reminded himself of that until it sounded believable.

But as soon as Lucy stepped back inside, giving him a look that said she knew he had been listening the whole time she was on the porch with her mother, he knew it was all a big joke. He wasn't just staying to save his own neck. It mattered to him, just a little bit, that he could help her save hers, too.

* * *

"What's '3-A' mean?"

"Huh?"

Ponyboy pointed to Dally's draft card, which he had on the table at the Curtis place. He'd reported to the draft board earlier that day, and they'd granted him the deferment. Lucy insisted they go over there and "quietly celebrate the deferment," since they hadn't quite told their friends about her pregnancy. Dally, of course, knew that this "quiet celebration" was code for Lucy's desire to go and hang out with Sadie. He wasn't going to complain. Their apartment was tiny, and it smelled like morning sickness no matter what Lucy did to allay it. Time away from it was strangely welcome.

But there was Pony, pointing to the one secret that Lucy insisted they needed to keep. Dally sighed through gritted teeth. Lucy was right in the living room, talking to Sadie and Soda about her first two classes at college and how neat it was that students got to sit wherever they wanted in every class. She could hear him if he broke the one rule she'd given him. And yet, if there was a rule, and Dally didn't break it …

"Does it mean you're gonna get shipped out?" Ponyboy asked. "_A _sounds like you're gonna get shipped out."

Before Dally could answer, Darry came around and picked up the draft card for himself. When he put it back down on the table, he looked at Dally, half puzzled and half … something else. Something Dally couldn't quite place, which bothered the living hell out of him. He liked to know things for sure.

"I know what that means," Darry said. "But how'd you get one, Dally?"

"One what?" Ponyboy asked.

"3-A," Darry said. "It's a paternity deferment."

Ponyboy's eyes just about bugged out of his head, and (God help the kid) he was turning bright red, too. At fifteen, he certainly knew how Dally got that paternity exemption from the draft, but the image of Lucy and Dally together was still too much for him to handle. He hoped maybe it had all gone down with the lights off. It seemed like something you should do with all the lights off. And though the image of Lucy and Dally together was enough to shock the kid's system to hell, it was nothing compared to the two and two he'd just put together.

"You mean you're gonna be a _daddy_?"

Dally still hadn't spoken. He hadn't even bothered to open his mouth because he knew he wouldn't be able to fit a word in. Pony had asked the question just a little too loudly. The chatter in the living room got deathly quiet, and there was a chill in the air—at least, that would be how Dally remembered it for a long time after the fact. The springs in the couch creaked as someone stood up and marched their way into the kitchen. Of course it was Lucy, folding her arms across her chest and clearing her throat like she was a teacher, and she'd just caught him throwing spitballs at the blackboard. He'd never admit it in public, but he loved when she took that role with him. It made him feel like somebody was watching out for him—not out to _get _him, but out _for _him.

"Are you kidding me?" Lucy asked.

"Well, clearly, you was listenin'," Dally said. "And if you were better at listenin' in, you'd have known that I didn't say shit about you or any baby."

"Doesn't matter. You're the one showing off your deferment when you know what it stands for. One of those on-purpose accidents, I take it."

By then, Sadie and Soda had gotten up from the living room and made their way into the kitchen, too. Judging by the looks on their faces, they weren't surprised to hear about Lucy. Dally assumed Sadie had known longer than he had. Something didn't sit well with him about that.

"So you ain't lyin'?" Pony asked. "You're havin' a baby?"

"We don't really call it a baby very much," Lucy said. "But … yeah. Yeah, I guess."

The air in the room was somewhere between sheer terror and bizarre excitement. Babies were supposed to be good news, and in a way, they always were—at least, that was the case for the Curtis siblings. Lucy wouldn't be a terrible mother. She could be rough, but she was capable of going soft when she needed to be, too. She could hack it with a baby in one hand and a book in the other. That was just the kind of woman she was. Dally, on the other hand, would be a disastrous father, if you could even call him that. He was their friend, and they cared for him. But with no example of how to be a father (apart from the loving and leaving, which Dally was bound to do, even if he was just trying to keep himself out of the war), there was almost no way he could stand to even pretend for very long.

"Are you OK?" Darry asked. His question was directed at Lucy, but Dally answered instead.

"No, she's not OK," he said. "I'm not OK. Nobody's OK."

He caught Lucy in his eye line, and she looked down at the floor, almost sad about what he'd said. For a minute, he felt what could have been a pang of guilt. It passed.

"I'm fine," Lucy said. "I get sick in the morning, and I'm having trouble falling asleep. But I'm …"

She wanted to reiterate that she was fine, only that wasn't true. Dally was right. Neither of them was OK. They should have expected that Lucy would get knocked up sooner or later if they stayed together, so why had they stayed together at all? Being together because they were the only person who wasn't scared shitless of the other no longer seemed like a valid enough reason. Lucy would give birth to this thing inside her, name it, inevitably get attached to it, and then one morning, she would wake up. And Dally would be gone. She knew it was bound to happen. It was the reason she was having trouble falling asleep at night. Stupidly, she figured that if she stayed awake, she could catch him as he tried to leave in the middle of the night. She figured he wouldn't want to put up a fight with her, so he'd delay his departure by another night. But no matter what she did, and no matter how long she stayed awake or fell asleep, Dally was always right there next to her in the morning. Like he'd never even tried to get up and out of bed. Why wasn't he leaving? Why wasn't he moving? It was the draft. It was only about the draft. He'd stick around and play the part of a father, but he wouldn't be a daddy. Part of Lucy was OK with that. Most of her was not. She'd never say so out loud. It didn't change the fact that it was true.

"We didn't fuckin' plan on this," Dally said.

"You don't say," Sadie said.

"Hey, shut up, Sadie."

He moved so that he was standing beside Lucy, who looked like she wanted to fall through the floor at that exact moment. Dally noticed, but only sort of.

"Nobody wanted this," Dally kept going (to even his own surprise … he rarely spoke this much all at once). "I didn't want it. Bennet didn't want it. Nobody fuckin' wants it. She's just as screwed as me. Ain't ya?"

And maybe it was hearing him say out loud. Maybe it was hearing him say it in front of the Curtises (especially Sadie, who also looked like she wanted to fall through the floor). Maybe it was those damned pregnancy hormones her mother had spent the last week warning her about. But Lucy tore out of the kitchen and down into Sadie's room, feeling a few tears prick at her eyes but trying her hardest to make sure they didn't fall.

Awkwardly, Sadie slid across the kitchen floor, trying to chase her down. Before she really tore out of there, she skidded to a halt, looked at Soda to make sure he knew what she was trying to say. He offered her a small nod, then glanced toward Lucy's direction to make sure that Sadie knew she could go. He could handle this one on his own.

At least, he had to go into it with that attitude. Otherwise, he might not go into it at all.

* * *

It had been about a week since Lucy learned she was pregnant. In that time, she had not dropped one tear. As scared as she was, she refused to cry. She didn't want to appear weak in front of Dally, but more importantly, she didn't want to appear weak in front of herself. College was more important than crying. Figuring out how to afford a baby was more important than crying. Lucy knew all of that.

Yet, in that moment, none of it mattered. She stood there in the middle of Sadie's room and (albeit quietly) began to sob. She was starting to shake, too, and she worried she might fall down. Of course, she didn't, as Sadie ran into the room and caught her before she knew it.

"It's OK," Sadie said, though she knew it wasn't exactly true. "I'm right here."

"That's just it, isn't it?" Lucy said, standing up a little and wiping at her eyes. "You're here, but _he's _not."

Sadie tried to smile, but it really wasn't any use. There was nothing she could say that could make this any easier on Lucy. When they were younger, Sadie always assumed she'd be the first to have a baby. That wasn't to say it would have been any easier, but at least Sadie's baby wouldn't have also been Dally's. It wasn't that she didn't care for him (in her own way), nor was it that she thought he didn't care for Lucy (in his own way). It was that she'd known him for too long, and he was too stubbornly entrenched in the belief that he could never be better. Sadie thought back to a night some months before her parents died when Dally came by with a gash on his cheek like Sadie had never seen before, and she'd seen some wicked cuts and scrapes in her days. Her mother tried to help him clean it up and dress it, but when Sadie walked by the open bathroom door; she could tell that Dally was physically fighting the urge to thank her. He was even fighting the urge to admit that he was in pain. If Sadie was fed up with that in just a few seconds, Lucy was the most valiant woman in the world for really being married to him. Sadie could hardly imagine what a guy who couldn't move his mouth to say _thank you, _even to someone who had always been there to support him and never asked anything of him in return, would be like in the face of a newborn baby.

But what was she going to do? Was she going to tell an already (surprisingly) fragile Lucy that her suspicions about Dally's staying power were probably true? Sadie didn't even want to believe it herself. She'd always had this bizarre amount of faith in Dally's capacity to be better than he was, even when he'd done almost nothing to prove that he could be. When he stayed married to Lucy (when he agreed to marry her at all, actually), she thought maybe he was helping his own case. And although Sadie wasn't quite ready to pull the curtains on Lucy and Dally, she couldn't help but feel her heart break a little when she remembered his claim about the baby: "Nobody fuckin' wants it."

And if the recent memory made Sadie feel like she could cry, she could only imagine how Lucy—the woman carrying that thing nobody wanted—must have felt.

"He's right, you know," Lucy said. "I didn't want this to happen. But it's my fault, right? I get married because I'm too impatient to think things through. I get pregnant because I'm too impatient to make sure we're using a damned condom. I willed this to happen. And now, of all times."

She sniffed loudly, holding back more tears. Sadie still didn't think it was a good idea to talk yet. Like Dally, Lucy could feel very deeply, but she thought it was some sort of worthy skill to keep it all inside. Perhaps if Sadie backed off for a little while longer, Lucy would finally be able to relieve some of that pressure. Being married to Dally (and, while they were at it, being married to Lucy) couldn't have been easy when it was a constant game of "Which One of Us Is Tougher?"

"And I keep almost kidding myself into thinking he'll stay, if nothing else so that he can afford to stay out of the war," Lucy said. She was hit with another wave of nausea when she thought about what would happen if the government tried to turn Dally—_her _Dally—into a soldier. The thought was both strange and depressing as it rolled around in Lucy's head and behind her mind's eye. She tried to flush it away with more almost tears, but nothing worked. She was too far gone.

"He might stay," Sadie said with a true sense of hope in her voice. "He's here now, and that's gotta tell ya somethin'. Dally's not one to back down from a challenge, and the war ain't nothing if it ain't a challenge. But a baby … that's a bigger one, and I think he knows that."

Lucy shrugged. She figured it had little to do with who she was as a person—as his wife—as it had to do with the regularity of sex. Where he'd had to work at least a little to get some girl in bed with him by the end of the night before, Lucy was always in the same bed … always ready and able to bang. Of course, the continuous and reliable banging had been what got them into this mess, so maybe he was itching to return to his days and nights of freewheeling. It would certainly be more fun, Lucy assumed, than sitting on his bed while she kneeled in front of the toilet and hurled her guts up for the fifth time in a single day. Lucy could have cried just thinking about it, so she stopped her train of thought like it wasn't heavy as could be. She wiped at her eyes again.

"What _is _this, Sadie?" Lucy asked, gesturing to her crying self. "I never act like this. What's gotten into me?"

"Well, Dally's gotten into you, and now you're a pregnant panic attack with legs."

Lucy rolled her eyes, and Sadie couldn't help but laugh—just a little bit. She was starting to look like her regular self again.

"But if you wanted to be more realistic," Sadie continued, "which I figure you do …"

She took another long look at Lucy, who was still trying not to cry. It was then that Sadie knew that Lucy didn't actually want to talk about what she was going to do about this thing inside of her. She _really _didn't want to talk about whether or not Dally was actually planning to stay. This was one of those times when focusing on the problem would do more harm than good.

"OK," she said. "What're you gonna name it?"

Lucy wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"You heard me. What're you gonna name it?"

"Well, I guess I hadn't really thought …"

"Come _on_, Lucy. You don't fool me. You love namin' things. I once watched you name a bottle of Coca-Cola."

"I miss Flo. It was a tragedy when I had to throw her in the trash."

Sadie smiled. Lucy wouldn't be a terrible mother. As a matter of fact, she might even manage to be a good one … even if she did have to do it on her own.

"See?" Sadie asked. "I know you think about it. Tell me. What're you gonna name it?"

Lucy took a deep breath. It felt good to be able to—for once since this went down—admit that part of her was excited about it. She could never say it in front of Dally, or even her parents who needed her to realize and accept what they (rightly) called "the gravity of her actions." But in front of Sadie? It was OK to be a little happy. That was Sadie Curtis's specialty.

"Well," Lucy said, her voice slow and steady. "If it's a boy, I've got to name him Jack. You know, after my dad."

Sadie grinned. It was always nice to see Lucy relax a little bit and let herself be something other than angry.

"That's a good name," she said. "I always thought if I had a son, I'd call him Patrick. Seems wrong not to name my kid after part of my twin, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

"What about if it was a girl?"

Lucy's heart stopped. She hadn't even quite admitted to herself yet (at least, not in a complete sentence), but she had a strong feeling that this thing inside of her was going to be a girl. It was an odd thing to think about, but she couldn't really picture it any other way. Maybe it was stupid to think that Dally was _too_ masculine to create a boy. She knew it was. It didn't change the fact that it was what she thought. In fact, she couldn't even bring herself to think of a name for a girl since she was so convinced that was what it was going to be. Admitting it out loud would make its birth more real, and as soon as its birth was real, so was Dally's inevitable abandonment. She let out a quiet sigh, and Sadie leaned in to hear it.

"I haven't …" Lucy started, and Sadie looked around the room at her own collection of books.

"Well, we know it's going to come from something in here," she said. "Can't be Jane. That would be too strange."

"Jane wouldn't ever let it go," Lucy almost laughed. "She'd lay claim to the kid before I even got to hold her myself."

"Ain't that the truth. Well, ya like _The Mill on the Floss_. What about Maggie?"

"If you think I'm gonna name a baby after Maggie Tulliver, brother-lover-extraordinaire, you gotta read _The Mill on the Floss _again."

"Catherine? After Earnshaw?"

"Katie would do the same thing as Jane, don't you think?"

"OK, fine. You and your dad both like _Pride and Prejudice_. What about Elizabeth?"

"You want me to name my daughter Elizabeth Bennet? That'll be the day."

Suddenly, all of the air was sucked out of the room. Lucy swore she wasn't going to make it about the foreseeable abandonment, and yet, it was impossible to shake it from the forefront of her imagination. She took another long, low, deep breath and tried to search for the right thing to say to break the tension—anything to keep her from _crying _again—but she didn't have to. Sadie was still there.

"You don't know you'd have to do that," Sadie said.

"Don't I?"

"He could still stay. He's made it this far. Besides, I know Dally. If he's gonna go out, it's not gonna be fightin' in some war he doesn't even understand. He's gonna go out on his own terms. Kinda like you."

"But that's not what I …"

Lucy stopped. She couldn't make herself say it, but she could think it. Since the second he handed her that draft card, even before he knew that she was pregnant, she wished that he would stay _for her_. It seemed impossible, but she still wished for it. There were a few minutes here and there in the year they had been together that she thought perhaps he was learning to value her … to care about what she thought of him and to stay close because she mattered something to him. Her mother's nagging had some merit to it, she supposed. Babies changed everything. No. She couldn't think of it as a baby. That was too real.

"What if he did stick around?" Sadie asked. "Would you give the kid his name?"

To both girls' surprises, Lucy nodded right away. She'd been thinking about it for long enough to have an answer.

"Yeah," Lucy said. "Yeah, I would."

She looked like she might cry again, so Sadie took her in her arms again. Lucy didn't cry. She just held on tightly and loved how much Sadie smelled like chocolate and Mini-Mist. It was homelier than her mother's house and her apartment above Great Books all in one.

"He could stay," Sadie kept saying. Over and over. It sounded more and more like a lie each time. What Lucy didn't know, however, was what was happening in the backyard at the very moment Sadie was holding and comforting her.

* * *

No amount of cigarettes could calm Dallas Winston down. He just kept thinking of the way Lucy tore out of that kitchen like a bat out of hell. What was her problem, anyway? He liked her because he liked that she was tougher than that. Did she really think this was a good time to start acting like a wimp? He'd never seen Lucy start to cry before, but the sight of it made him want to explode. What a terrible sight it was … and a terrible sound, too. He gritted his teeth together when he thought of how much babies cried and how if he were really going to stay and avoid the war, he'd have to put up with the wailing at all hours of the night. He was OK with middle-of-the-night wailing back when it was just Lucy and him, but this was different. This was "little baby not knowing whether it's tired or hungry or whatever," and he didn't think he was ready for that. Lucy wasn't ready for it, either. But he wasn't ready to die, nor did he want Lucy to give up college (which she still talked about every night, despite the fact that Dally asked her not to), so he had to keep telling himself that this was better than anything they had over there. He had to keep telling himself that until it felt like he could believe it.

Soda came outside a few minutes after Dally stepped out back. As soon as Dally saw the kid ambling toward him, he closed his eyes tightly and wondered if he kept them shut for long enough, maybe he would go away. He didn't. Seconds passed, and he could feel Sodapop Curtis standing practically on top of him. He opened his eyes and then narrowed them.

"What're you doin' out here, man?" he asked. "Didn't ya figure I wanted to be alone?"

"I did," Soda said. "But I don't think that's too hot of an idea."

"Why do you care so much about what I do?"

"We're buddies, ain't we?"

"Not like you an' Steve. Not even like my wife an' your sister."

"But that's what it is. I told ya so before. I love Sadie, and Sadie loves Lucy. That means I gotta love Lucy as much as I love Sadie. And I know stuff about her."

"Yeah? Me too."

Soda shook his head. He wasn't sure how much Dally knew about Lucy, but he couldn't have known any of this. This was the stuff she worked hard to keep from him.

"You don't know how much it means to her that you've stuck around this long," Soda said. "You don't know how much she likes havin' you around. I don't know why, considerin' …"

Soda gestured toward Dally's entire body, and Dally snorted, not amused. He got the point.

"How long have you known about Lucy bein' knocked up?" Dally asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be stupid. It don't seem like a shock to you. You must've known before Pony said somethin'."

"Lucy told Sadie and Johnny at the hospital when they brought her in for her ankle. I probably found out same time as you did."

Dally rolled his eyes. Soda tried to protest, but Dally wouldn't let him. It was easier not to fight Dally when he was in a dangerous mood. Yet, this wasn't much of a dangerous mood. Dally seemed almost … _almost _… scared of what was going to happen next. It was coming out as rage, but it wasn't that pure rage that Soda was used to seeing out of Dally. This was different. He'd seen Dally look like this only once before—when he'd gone after Dally for missing Lucy's graduation. It was almost welcome.

"I knocked her up, and I ain't even the first to hear about it," Dally said. "Sounds about right, don't it?"

It took everything in Soda's power (which was far greater than the others were willing to recognize) to keep from smiling. Yes, that was it. That was exactly what he needed Dally to say. Maybe Sadie and their mother had been right about him the whole time. Maybe Dally had a clue about what it meant to be a better guy, after all.

"Ya seem a little bugged by that," Soda said.

"Course I am. Wouldn't you be?"

Soda's ears turned pink. Some time ago, he _was _bugged to learn that his girl was knocked up (and even more bugged to discover that it wasn't his kid). To Soda's surprise, Dally noticed he was squirming and must have known it wasn't the right thing to say, as he tried to change the subject almost immediately. He learned how to do that after living with Mrs. Bennet, who got uncomfortable pretty much any time he was in the room. It bothered him—the way she acted around him when he was just breathing—so he figured out a way around it. It wasn't motivated by _compassion_. He was simply being smart.

"I can't decide if it was worth it to get outta the draft, man," Dally said. "I ain't itchin' to die in a country I never even been to before, but I ain't itchin' to change some kid's fuckin' diapers, either."

"Ya mean if Lucy asked you to change the kid, ya would?"

Dally got very quiet for what felt like a very long time. He hadn't phrased it that way on purpose. Of course he wouldn't change the kid if Lucy asked. He wasn't staying because he wanted to be a daddy. He was staying to keep himself alive. This was a small price to pay for keeping out of the war. Wasn't it?

A small part of him (louder than he was giving it credit for) knew that a baby was never a small price to pay. Maybe he'd been a small price for his folks, and maybe Violet had been an even smaller price because she was younger—not to mention that she was a girl. Maybe he was staying because …

No.

"If you're not just stayin' to get out of the war, you oughta tell Lucy," Soda said. "I know she acts like she don't care what happens to you, but if that were really true, do you think she'd still be married to you?"

Dally still wasn't speaking. He didn't need to. Somehow, Sodapop Curtis was standing there, making better points about his own life than he ever could. Maybe he ought to raise this kid as his own, too, just like he'd offered to do for Sandy. Soda would make a better daddy to any kid than he ever could. After all, when Soda was a kid, he'd had a daddy. Dally was just born one day and kicked around the next. He didn't know what being a daddy meant, and he wasn't sure he was up for finding out.

"I think she wants you to stay because you wanna be with her," Soda kept on. "She hopes it ain't all about keepin' you outta the war. She wants it to be a little bit about her and that baby, too."

"Naw, she don't," Dally said. "She ain't like that. She don't care what happens to me. She's told me so before."

"She cares, Dally."

"How would you know?"

"I just know."

Dally put out his cigarette underneath his boot, ignoring Soda's eyes, which still hadn't wandered from him. It was too hard to look Soda in the eye, especially now that Lucy was knocked up. Soda had his dad's eyes, and looking at them just made Dally remember how some people were cut out to be dads. He wasn't one of them. He was cut out to be the guy who knocked a girl up (and he was fairly surprised he hadn't—to his knowledge, that was—done it before), but he wasn't cut out to be the guy who stuck around and got called _Dad_.

"If you wanna stay because you wanna be with her, tell her," Soda said. "I think she needs to hear it. And I don't even think it'd be a lie."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What makes you so sure."

"There are a million ways outta this—bein' a daddy and goin' to war. You could pack up all your stuff, burn your draft card, and sneak outta the country. Wouldn't have put it past ya about a year ago. You could find your way out of any of this, but you don't. Ain't that 'cause a little part of ya wants to stay? Don't you wanna be with Lucy?"

Dally exhaled. What Sodapop didn't know was that minutes before Johnny came into the store to tell him that Lucy was in the hospital, he'd been thinking about how awful it would be to go to war and lose her. He didn't even want to burn his draft card for her since he was afraid it would mean more jail time … time away from her. Back then, he'd wanted nothing more than to keep out of the war so that he could be with Lucy. Things were different now. He couldn't afford to be that honest. Maybe it didn't make a lot of sense, but it was true. This damn baby was throwing a wrench into everything, and it didn't even have a face yet.

"Why do you keep chasin' after me?" Dally asked. "Thought ya knew I was hopeless."

Soda shook his head.

"Sadie never thought you were hopeless," he said. "And neither did my mom."

They stood in silence for quite some time—enough time for Dally to light up again. It wasn't easy to think about Mrs. Curtis, so he wouldn't. He'd just smoke and breathe right in Soda's face, knowing that eventually, it would be enough to run him back into the house.

And yet, it didn't seem to matter how much he smoked or how much he said to try to get Soda to leave. He wouldn't. He just stood there, saying nothing, waiting for Dally to get the picture. He wasn't going anywhere. For as long as he and Lucy needed him and Sadie (and they needed them something awful), he wasn't going anywhere.

Dally couldn't quite put it into words (not even in his own stream of consciousness), but some part of it was glad that Soda wouldn't budge. It made him feel like somebody almost wanted him to be a better guy. Then again, it was only an almost.

* * *

"'M sorry."

Lucy rolled over in bed to look at Dally, who had been facing her back since they'd fallen into bed together moment earlier. They hadn't spoken much about Lucy's outburst at the Curtis house (or spoken much at all since they'd left), and Lucy figured they'd ignore each other for a little while as she tried to figure out what was the best way to handle the outburst and still look tough and cool in front of Dally. Apparently, none of it mattered, as he was lying there and apologizing to her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"'M sorry for sayin' nobody wanted …" He gestured toward her stomach where the thing was soon to stick out and grow. It made him almost sick inside to picture that. That would mean he really couldn't dodge it—he was just in it with no real escape. No real escape that he could see, anyway.

"Well, 'm sorry. Don't make me say it again."

Slowly, Lucy nodded. She was too tired to be in shock that this was the second time in the same year that Dallas Winston was apologizing to her for something that hurt her, though she resolved to be shocked (and to phone Sadie with the news) when she woke up again in the morning. Maybe he really was staying because he …

No. It couldn't be. He'd begged her to tell him that she loved him, but that was no more than a narcissistic plea from a young man who'd never heard somebody say that and mean it before. He didn't love her. He didn't know how.

Dally looked into Lucy's eyes and noted that there was something different inside of them. They weren't as fiery as they usually were. Lucy just looked sad, which made him angry, because he knew he was the one who did it to her. When he married Lucy, he jokingly vowed that he would stomp the hell out of anyone who made her cry. And while he'd stomped the hell out of himself plenty of times before, it just wasn't as fun to stomp himself as it was to stomp some guy on the street.

He wanted to tell Lucy that he never thought of what it must feel like to be her—to be trapped with this thing in her body. He felt trapped by its existence and the fact that no matter how hard he could try to run away, he'd never be able to completely escape this kid. But Lucy's whole body was trapped. She was making a whole new body inside of her own. Though Dally could never understand that, he wanted to tell her that it was OK. He wanted to tell her that he would be there to listen to her even if he couldn't figure out how to help.

Only he didn't. He couldn't. He didn't know how.

Finally, Lucy nodded, wishing desperately to fall back asleep.

"OK," she said. "Well, thank you."

Dally mumbled something else, but as soon as Lucy's head hit the pillow again, she was out like a light. When she woke up the next morning, she was almost amazed. Not only was it the first night since she discovered her pregnancy that she hadn't had any trouble sleeping, but also, it was the first night since she discovered her pregnancy that she had a pleasant dream. Dally was in it, too.

* * *

**Me, in a bitter, sarcastic voice: I sure do love interiority where the characters repeat themselves (and lie to themselves) to justify their own bad behavior and self-loathing! Yep! That's me! – I promise other chapters won't be as self-contained.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. I don't even quote any classic lit in this chapter. Wow.**


	9. Chapter 9

Everyone else reacted to Lucy's getting knocked up exactly as she and Dally assumed they would. Two-Bit and Steve gave him hell for loving without gloving, Jane threw her hand over her heart and cried as though this was nothing but a good thing, Carrie Shepard clicked her tongue and silently judged Lucy for being so young and so impulsive (which was nothing compared to Tim, whose response was to kick Dally's ass "for bein' so damn stupid"), and Lilly and Katie each began to beg Lucy to name the baby after one of them.

"I think Lillian is a classy name," Lilly said. "You just can't beat it."

"You could," Katie said. "You could name her Katherine. That's a _real _classy name."

"There are too many Katherines in the world. Someone should write a book about that."

"Why would someone write a book about that?"

"I don't know. Make you feel like a jerk, maybe."

Lucy shook her head. It was a Saturday afternoon, and she was working in the store. Eddie was visiting his sister and her family in Texas, so the store was Lucy's responsibility. Of course, when she heard that she was responsible for looking after the store in Eddie's absence, she took it upon herself to invite her former lunchtime crowd to spend the afternoon with her.

It went about as well as Lucy could have expected. Sadie sat behind the counter with her, thumbing through _North and South _as though she was really reading it (She had tried to get through it twice on Ponyboy's recommendation, but she just hated the image of a cotton farm.). Jane stood near the door, letting the sunlight hit her platinum hair, as she immersed herself in a copy of _Romeo and Juliet_. Lucy didn't have the heart to tell her that the story didn't end as romantically as the cover suggested it would. Carrie was holed up in the darkest corner of the store, intensely reading and taking notes in a copy of _Waiting for Godot _(also on Ponyboy's recommendation). And Lilly and Katie were bickering about whose name was better for Lucy's unborn baby.

"The two of you can cut it out," Lucy said. "We don't even know if it's gonna be a girl."

"Oh, I'll bet it's a girl," Jane said. Her voice was that kind of breathy that Lucy could barely stand. "I can't picture you with a son."

"What grade did you get in biology, Jane?"

Jane sighed. Lucy said she was working on her know-it-all-ness, but there was almost no way she could leave it behind her entirely. Would Lucy pull the same tricks on her kid if it ever grew up and said something that wasn't completely correct? Ideally not, but Jane wouldn't put it past her. That was part of her … _charm _wasn't the right word, but maybe there wasn't a right word for whatever it was Lucy had.

"I think Jane's got a point," Sadie said. "You were our first intro to women's rights. You kind of _are _the experience of bein' a woman. Seems weird to picture you with a boy."

Lucy didn't say anything. To think about the sex of the baby was to turn that bundle of cells inside of her body into a subject, and she wasn't ready for that. Earlier that day, she had been poring over the syllabi for each of her four classes to double check when the final exams were held. At first, she thought nothing of it; then, she realized her pregnancy would probably be showing by the time she sat down to take her exam in Intro to English. She worried she'd have to make it through her math exam with something on her inside kicking at her outside. Suddenly, it was no longer about making the grade, just like it had always been … just like Dally told her it still would be, given he was sticking around (allegedly). It was about making the grade behind the whispers of what she was doing there if she was married and pregnant, anyway. Lucy could have cried just thinking about it, but she didn't. She didn't want to be that person, nor did she want everyone in the room to coddle her (which they would have).

"It'd be easier to raise a girl on my own, that's for sure," Lucy said. "I don't have a clue what it means to be a boy."

"What do you mean, 'on your own?'" Lilly asked. "Ain't you an' Dally still married?"

"Yeah, but do you really see him sticking around to raise a screaming brat?"

Lilly was going to answer, but before she could, Dally came down from the apartment upstairs. He looked around at all the young women in the shop and exhaled softly … quietly. What had he done to deserve this? A bunch of broads beneath his apartment, and he was only interested in banging one of them. It was exactly the opposite of the fantasies he'd had before he looked at Lucy in the eye on the night he'd last gotten out of jail. He wasn't sure how he was meant to feel about that, so he decided to forget it. He walked over to Lucy at the counter and leaned over it to talk to her.

"You didn't tell me you were havin' an entire country over here," he said.

"Didn't think I needed your permission," Lucy said.

"Thought ya liked to keep me in the loop."

"Sometimes."

Dally exhaled slowly. He wasn't sure what to make of Lucy's behavior lately, so he decided he'd forget it … only he couldn't. Since they'd been married, he felt like she was warming up to him … like she didn't need to hide behind a wall of sarcasm and bitterness anymore. He liked it when she could play tough, but he needed her to be able to be something else, too. He needed her to be soft for the both of them. Lately, she'd been nothing but cold and callous, almost like she wanted him to pack up and leave. He got a kick out of that one. After nearly a year of marriage, she hadn't figured out that the more someone wanted him to do something, the more likely he was to do the opposite.

Of course, maybe she had figured it out. That would make more sense.

"Where are you going, anyway?" Lucy asked.

"We talked about this. I'm goin' to Buck's. Poker. Gotta win some extra money to take care of you an' …"

He stopped himself. He didn't want to admit that part of him was getting attached to that little thing inside of Lucy's body, against his better and harsher discernment. It wasn't a baby. It was just a thing, and he didn't really want it. It was just there.

"When will you be back?" Lucy asked.

"Dunno. Didn't think I needed your permission."

Lucy thought she heard Lilly squeal. She snorted with some blasé amusement. Only Lilly would find a way to make this kind of nasty bickering into something romantic. All of a sudden, Lucy's stomach grew sick, and it wasn't about the baby. She looked at Lilly and wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and take her away from where she was. It killed her to know that there was nothing she could do, much like it killed Dally to know there was nothing he could do for Violet or Johnny. They really were similar.

"When I get back," Dally said, "these broads better be gone. I wanna see you for myself."

"We'll see about that."

"You're right. We will."

He leaned over the counter a little more, almost as though he was willing Lucy to kiss him. She noticed, chuckled sarcastically at his ostensible desperation, and let him go. After he was out the door, the other girls turned to her, visibly disappointed.

"How could you just let him walk out like that?" Jane asked.

"Because he's a grown man, and he's allowed wherever he wants," Lucy said. "Do you not know how this works?"

"I know how being eighteen works. I also know that he was practically begging you to ask him to stay."

Lucy blushed. She couldn't imagine a world where Dally wanted her to hold him back. That was, strangely enough, what she felt like she was doing now that she was pregnant. She knew she was only keeping him off the streets and out of the jungle, but it still felt like that was where he would rather be. It was ridiculous, but then again, so was the past year of her life.

"He wasn't," she said. "He'd never look that desperate."

"He didn't look desperate," Jane said. "I've known him a long time, and I could just tell."

"How could you tell?"

"Easy," Lilly cut in. "It's the way he used to act with …"

She saw the pain in Lucy's eyes, and she figured it was best not to finish her sentence. They never talked about the girls Dally had been with before. They knew it would only hurt Lucy, and Lucy didn't like to be hurt. It wasn't that he'd loved any of them as much as he had to have loved her. Surely he wouldn't have stuck around to see the birth of his child with any one of them. Surely he wouldn't have married any one of them on a stupid dare. But that didn't make it easy for Lucy to hear. She had no past. Everything (and perhaps unfortunately) was Dally. Even her first kiss had been Dally. The other girls knew that. They also knew that she was embarrassed of it, and any precautions they could take to keep her from remembering it—any of it, Dally's past, her lack of one—they took.

"Either way," Lilly said. "I'm with Jane."

"Yeah," Katie added. "Even I was about two seconds away from tellin' ya to get a room."

"Oh, well, we've got one, Katie. It's upstairs, and it's kind of what got us into this mess in the first place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go up there, and I'm going to go hurl."

She ran up the stairs, and the other girls looked to Sadie, surprised that she wasn't chasing after Lucy like she usually would. Sadie noticed their eyes, and she simply shook her head. As much as she loved being there to comfort and assure her friends, particularly Lucy, she could always tell when one of her friends wanted to be left alone. This was that moment for Lucy. Best to respect it.

* * *

Lucy hurled the last of her guts into the toilet, gagging on her own breath and slamming her back against the wall. Her knees were burning after kneeling on the tile floor for as long as she needed to. She thought she was finally done with morning (noon and night) sickness, but she was far from it. She closed her eyes, held back the tears that were stinging behind her eyes, and cupped her belly where she thought the thing—the baby—might be.

"One thing's for sure," she said. "You're your father's child. Only something related to him could make me this sick."

She looked up at the ceiling, wondering what in the hell she'd just done. Ever since she found out she was pregnant, she'd never talked to the thing like that. Talking to the thing just made it more real—made it a baby, her baby, Dally's baby. The more real the baby was, the more likely Dally was to leave. Maybe Dally could sense that she had just talked to it, and maybe it was putting him off from wherever he'd really gone off to. She closed her eyes to keep from crying at the thought.

* * *

Earlier, Dally had told Lucy the truth. He was planning on going to Buck's so that he could clean up in poker, and he was going to use whatever cash he won to buy something for her or that thing she was carrying inside of her. That was the plan.

And then, before he could take his seat at the table, somebody popped up from out of nowhere and whisked him away.

"Where've you _been_?" Sylvia asked him. She was putting on some fake nice voice. Dally hated the sound of it. He knew she only used it when she was about to go in for the kill, and though her killer instinct was what drew him to her, he wasn't up for being _the killed_.

"Think ya know the answer if you're askin' like that."

"You're right. Heard ya got married. That true?"

"'F I had a ring, I'd show ya."

Sylvia snorted. She never figured Dally would get his life together, but years ago, the last bit of naivety she once had made her hope that if he ever did, she would, too. And they'd figure it out together. Of course some other broad got him now. There was no point in being jealous, of course. They'd been terrible together – clashing over everything, from Dally's subconscious proclivity for that brunette with all the books to Sylvia's above-board penchant for any man who wasn't Dally.

"Who's the broad?"

Dally didn't say anything, so Sylvia knew it had to be that brunette with all the books. She rolled her eyes and wished for the destruction of the world. It wasn't that she was jealous. She wasn't. Dally hadn't meant much to her, and she was fairly certain she hadn't meant much to him, either. He'd been into that brunette with all the books for longer than he knew. Sylvia could tell. One night, maybe two or three years earlier, they'd run into her at Jay's. She was with the Curtis sister. She was _always _with the Curtis sister. Dally kept sneaking glances at her before he finally walked over to their table and threatened to pour her Coke over her head. That was really annoying – and telling. If Dally was only threatening to pour a Coke over a chick's head, he had to be madly in love with her, whether he knew it or not. But of course he didn't. Dally didn't know what it meant to be in love with anybody – not even with himself, though he was good at pretending to.

"You're kiddin'," Sylvia said.

"I didn't even say her name."

"Ya didn't have to. You been in love with her … long as I can remember."

Again, Dally didn't say anything. He wasn't in love with Lucy. He thought she was real pretty – more than pretty, now that they'd been married for nearly a year. He kind of respected her, too. She was so into her work, but she was a tough chick. She could land a few hits in a rumble if she ever found herself in one. He still almost admired the image of her wailing on a kid when she was thirteen (and all about a fucking presidential election, the most Bennet thing to get into a brawl over). She was a hot, clever broad with a mean streak to rival his own, but he was not in love with her.

"I ain't in love with her," Dally said. "You don't know why we got married."

"Somethin' about Sadie Curtis, somethin' about a dare. Shit gets around."

"Then ya know she's knocked up, then."

Sarcastically, Sylvia clapped her hands together and let out a high laugh. She hadn't heard about that. Though she was grateful everyday to have broken it off with Dally, she was _beyond _grateful when she heard that the brunette was knocked up. She couldn't imagine pushing out something that was half Dally, although she'd been in a position to fear it several times before. Now the book girl was going to do it for her? That kid would be screwier than Dally himself. With a mama who did nothing but read and a daddy who did nothing but ruin everything that crossed his path, the kid couldn't make it much past its first birthday, probably.

She furrowed her brow after a minute. Something wasn't right. In addition to the obvious (Dally being anybody's father), there was something off about him. He was _there_. He had knocked up a broad, and he was still around, telling the tale. Sylvia had always suspected that he was crazy about that girl, but it didn't make sense for Dally to still be standing there. He always told Sylvia that if she got knocked up, he'd bolt without a word. What in the hell was making him stay for this chick? It wasn't love. Dally couldn't do that, exactly. It had to be …

"Let me see your draft card."

Dally let out a curt laugh. Maybe Sylvia knew him better than he'd once given her credit.

"Don't carry it around, seein' as I don't need it."

"And that's why you're stayin'? Not 'cause you're all of a sudden 'Mr. Dad-of-the-Year?'"

"Do I look like that guy to you?"

"I don't know what you look like, but you don't look like Dally. That's for sure."

What did she mean? How could he not look like himself? He was still Dally – still out for himself, still not giving a damn if he lived or died. Then he remembered why he hadn't wanted to go to war in the first place, before he ever found out about Lucy. But it wasn't that he wanted to be with her. He didn't want some baby, planned or unplanned. He didn't want to be with Lucy. He just didn't want to be away from her. From his point of view, there was a big difference. It was the difference between being Dallas Winston and being Sodapop Curtis. Soda was the kind of guy who stayed around because he wanted to be with the girl … wanted to have the baby, wanted to buy it tiny little clothes and take it for walks, whatever you did with a baby. Dally was the kind of guy who stayed around because he wasn't ready to die yet, and the girl had become part of his routine. There was no use in giving that up now.

_Routine? _He'd never had a routine before, but he knew he did now. He woke up. He kissed Lucy (at least, he used to – now she was already upchucking in the toilet before he got up). He made money. He brought that money back to Lucy. Sometimes, he would go mess some shit up with Shepard or Two-Bit or Steve, but since he'd often rather go home to see Lucy (He'd rather be in a woman's body than a holding cell, after all.), that wasn't happening as much as it did. Every thought he had completely contradicted the one before it. And why was he still having so many of them? He'd left the apartment so that he didn't have to look at Lucy and hear her wretch in the bathroom. He'd left the apartment so that he wouldn't have to think. And yet, he had every intention of going back by the end of the night. What was the matter with him?

"You don't think I look like me?" he asked.

"You look like you on the outside," Sylvia said, "but that's about it. You ain't Dally."

"Fuck you. I ain't Dally? I'll show you."

He was going to grab Sylvia by the waist and ram his tongue down her throat like he used to (especially when he, in the back of his mind, though Bennet might be watching from the corner of her eye – he loved to watch her scoff at him). But he didn't. He couldn't. The second his body came into remote contact with hers, he pulled back. He could feel Lucy's lips on his … could feel the way her lips felt as they traveled down his chest … could hear the way she laughed when she reached for his zipper. He'd never been able to feel a woman like that when she wasn't there – only Lucy. And then, when he realized that even though he could _feel _her, he wasn't actually touching her … he didn't want to be at Buck's place anymore. He wanted to be home.

_Home_. He had one of those now. Why was that fair? What had he done to deserve it? He'd been nothing but a fuck-up since the day he was born. His mother's death hinted at it. His father had seconded the motion. His failure to protect Violet had sealed the deal. He'd never had a place to go back to after that night until he had Lucy. What made him the kind of guy who deserved a home? Johnny didn't have one, and he was a good kid. Of course, Violet wasn't a good kid, but Dally always thought she deserved a home, too. She deserved a home more than he did. What had he done to get one? Some good-looking broad with a smart head on her shoulders dared him to marry her because she wanted to have sex with him. It hardly seemed like redemption. Was that what he was looking for? It couldn't be. He wasn't worth that.

When Sylvia saw that he was holding back, she laughed again. It wasn't a cruel laugh. She could be meaner than a snake, but that wasn't true all the time. She was laughing because she thought it was funny. It was funny to see Dally curb his impulsivity like this. She'd seen it once or twice before, but this was something else entirely.

"You can't show me 'cause I'm fuckin' right," she said. "You ain't Dally – at least, you ain't the Dally I dumped in '65."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"Please. Back then, you wouldn't have given a damn that you had a girl at home. If you wanted to take me back up to that old room of yours and screw my brains out just 'cause you could, you would've. But ya didn't."

"I could."

"But ya won't."

He shifted his eyes toward the ground. She was right. He wasn't going to do that. He wanted to go home and see Lucy. He didn't even need her to touch him or speak to him. He just wanted to see her. Why did he want to see her? He didn't love her. He didn't know how.

"Ya know I'm right," Sylvia said. "Ain't no surprise, either."

"What?"

"You endin' up with the book-readin' girl. You always kept your eye on her. Never liked it if ya caught somebody else lookin' at her, too."

Dally couldn't remember any of that, though it still might have been true. Apparently, there were plenty of things he didn't know about himself.

"I was waitin' for you to figure it out for yourself. After awhile, didn't think you ever would."

"Didn't stop you from steppin' out on me."

"And you'd have been happy if I stuck around?"

Dally didn't say anything. Both of them already knew the answer. Frustrated, Sylvia rolled her eyes.

"Course not," she said. "You don't do _happy_. Not for more than five seconds a night."

"Fuck off."

"Don't worry. I will. Just not with you."

"Right. You'd pick a hundred guys 'fore you picked me."

"And you'd pick a hundred girls. I know I stepped out on you, but you can't expect me to believe ya never stepped out on me, too."

Again, Dally looked to the floor and kept a tight lip. Sylvia always figured that when he found out she'd hooked up with some other guy, he'd go and hook up with another girl to get even. But he never did. He looked around a lot and thought about breaking all the unspoken rules and pulling something on Jane Randle, but he couldn't. Jane was cute, but he never liked the way she ignored Violet back when Violet would come around. Plus, even Dally could respect that Sodapop would find his way to Jane sooner or later. Either way, he could never bring himself to step out on Sylvia. Back then, she was his girl, and there was something to be said for that.

"How many times you stepped out on your wife?"

Dally glanced up and looked Sylvia in the eye. He still wasn't speaking, but he knew she understood what he was trying to communicate, anyway. If he'd never cheated on Sylvia, then of course he hadn't cheated on Lucy. She was his wife, and even if it had all been a dare, there was something to be said for that. He was going to say it. He was going to say what the old man couldn't, just to spite him, wherever he was.

Sylvia shook her head. She was smiling, but it wasn't an evil smile. It wasn't a happy smile, but it wasn't evil, either. It just … was. Dally didn't understand that, but he knew, somehow, that it was true.

"I fuckin' knew it," she said. "You're in love with her."

"I'm not."

"Then why are we standing at the door? Why do you look like you're ready to get out of here?"

Dally looked around and noticed that, in fact, Sylvia was telling the truth. They were standing at the front door, and he was gripping the doorknob like he needed to get out of there. He didn't even realize he'd walked all the way over there, which bothered the hell out of him. He didn't always have a plan, but he liked to be aware of where he was. This was different. This was … it just was.

"I gotta go," he said.

"Where are you goin'?"

"I just gotta go. Can you please let me? Thank you."

Sylvia moved away from the door and let him go. It was all she could do. She didn't want him. She never really had. The good thing was, he'd never quite wanted her, either.

As soon as Dally walked out the door, he knew exactly where he needed to go.

* * *

Lucy lay in her bed, looking up at the ceiling, talking to the baby inside of her. It was no use pretending anymore. This was a baby, and before she knew it, she was going to meet the kid. She was probably going to like it, too. She felt terrible for it, since it would probably never know a father. It was too bad, too. Lucy had more faith in Dally than everyone else seemed to have. Then again, maybe she was blinded by her love for him.

She knew the baby didn't have ears yet, but she spoke to it, anyway. Anything to feel less alone. Once Dally inevitably left, the baby would be all she had left (of him). It was fine. She had a feeling the baby would look more like her, anyway. She didn't know if she could handle looking into a face that was almost his, but not quite. Of course, it was all conjecture – something that she, as the literary thinker, was damn good at.

"I'm going to start reading out loud more," Lucy said. "I know you can't hear me yet, but I can't help but think it'll make you smarter the earlier I start."

She reached out and grabbed a book off her nightstand. It was _The Great Gatsby_. Fitzgerald wasn't her favorite of all time, but it was a good book – the first that her father's favorite colleague had assigned in Intro to English. Lucy opened to a random page and began to read to the thing – the baby – inside of her, who could not hear, but it didn't matter. Somehow, Lucy figured the baby was listening.

She read. "'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool – that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"

She snorted and closed the book on her stomach. This was no random page. This was no random page at all.

Just as she was about to stare up at the ceiling and pray that Dally wouldn't turn out like any of Fitzgerald's men, there was a knock at the door. Lucy groaned. She'd dismissed her group of friends, including Sadie, a few hours earlier when she realized she wasn't going to stop vomiting in the near future. Now, of course, one of them was back. Just when she wanted to be alone.

"Go away, Sadie."

"It ain't Sadie."

Confused, Lucy got up from the bed and unlocked the door. She was stunned out of her mind to see Johnny standing in the doorway.

"Johnny?" she asked.

"Yeah?"

"What're you doing here?"

"Sadie told me to come by."

Lucy sighed and smiled at the same time. That sounded like Sadie. She knew she wasn't up for talking to her, but maybe if she sent Johnny, she could get something out of him.

"Well, come on in," she said, making way for him. "It would be weird if I made you stand in the hallway all night."

He followed her lead, and she shut the door behind him. Lucy resumed her place on the bed, while Johnny, feeling awkward and out of place, stood over her. It felt wrong to sit. He didn't feel like he belonged there.

"So, what did Sadie want you to find out?" Lucy asked. "Did she want to make sure I was done tossing my guts out?"

"That was part of it," Johnny said. "She also thought maybe if you wouldn't talk to her, you'd talk to me."

"About what?"

"Dunno. She said you'd know."

Lucy wanted to crawl out of her own skin. She wished she could. If she could crawl out of her own skin, she wouldn't have to worry about her stomach stretching out to make room for the baby. She wouldn't have to worry about how it would hang low and embarrass her after the baby was born. She wasn't in love with her body as it was, and now, she was going to put it through this kind of torture? Before long, she was met with another wave of nausea.

"I figured you're about the last person who'd come talk to me about Dally," Lucy said. "After all, I kinda turned you down … for Dally."

"Oh, 's alright," Johnny said. "If you hadn't turned me down, I wouldn't have asked out Sadie. Things work out, don't ya think?"

Lucy almost smiled. She wasn't going to tell Johnny, but although Sadie talked about him quite a lot, she didn't rave about him. It wasn't like the way Lucy could rave about Dally, anyway. When Sadie talked about Johnny, she was always quiet about it. She would say that he was a nice guy. She would say that she adored him, and they had nice talks. He liked to take her outside to watch sunsets and tell her how pretty she looked in them. But when she spoke of him, she was calm. Not bored. Just calm. Lucy wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad one. Either way, it wasn't worth hinting at in front of Johnny.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, they work out."

She gestured to her body and made a face.

"Except they don't really work out for me."

"Aww, c'mon," Johnny said. "A baby's never a bad thing. Not when it's got a good mama."

"I can't imagine I'll be a very good mother."

"You won't be a bad one."

Lucy wanted nothing more than to change the subject. She hated bringing up the word _parents _in front of Dally, and he wasn't even sensitive. Talking about being a good parent in front of Johnny was enough to make her want to disappear. She gave him another weak smile and tried to change the subject.

"He's not gonna stay, is he?" Lucy asked. "Dally."

Johnny shrugged.

"Dunno. But if I had to guess …"

"You'd say he's gonna leave?"

"Naw. I've seen him with you. It's different than he was with other girls."

"I don't need you to compare me to anyone. It doesn't do any good."

"I know. I'm only sayin'. Way he talks about you. Like he's never met anybody like you before."

"Well, we've never met anybody just like somebody else before. That's kind of the way things work."

"You know what I mean. I don't know. It's like you surprise him or somethin'."

That one almost made Lucy laugh again. If Johnny was saying that she surprised Dally, then he was also delivering the understatement of the century. When she told Dally he didn't have to go to war because she wasn't just his wife, but his pregnant wife, she was sure he'd never been so surprised in his life. Of course, _surprise _had positive connotations. The word Johnny was looking for was probably something more like _disgusted _or _appalled_.

But that couldn't be true. Two days earlier, Dally had kissed her lips in spite of knowing that she had, moments earlier, been vomiting in the sink. Any guy who could do that to a girl wasn't disgusted by her … was he?

"So, maybe he'll stay," Lucy said. "He'll stay. Keep his ass out of Vietnam so he can … I don't know anymore. That doesn't mean he loves me."

"Yeah? D'you love him?"

Panicked, Lucy paused. Then, she slowly nodded and squeaked out something that sounded like a yes. She'd admitted it before (to Dally's face, even, which was got them into this mess), but each time … each minute this thing inside her was growing … it became harder and harder to own up to. It wasn't easy to admit to loving a guy who was bound to leave her on her own with a screaming baby. It felt unfair.

"Sometimes I think he loves me, too," Lucy said. "Like when he kisses me after I've just been throwing up, or he picks up my books and leaves them open to pages I'll like. He never admits to doing it, but I know it's him. But it feels … I don't know, it feels impossible that he could love me."

"How come?" Johnny asked. "You've known Dally a long time. You know he can do a lot of decent stuff for us. You think he loves the rest of us?"

"Do you?"

Johnny didn't say anything. In truth, there was a part of him that thought – perhaps knew – that Dally did love them. He wasn't as gushy or as clear about it as Soda, and he didn't open his house up to take care of the others like Darry. But Dally could mess a guy up if he looked at one of his gang funny. He had before; like that night in the park those Soc kids were going to drown Ponyboy. Of course Dally loved them. He just couldn't say it. He could barely even think it. Dally loved them, but it was difficult to admit that he could love anything after all the time because he must have known love was the same thing as pain. And he'd spent teaching himself that pain wasn't worth feeling unless it was in his fists.

"If he does love me," Lucy said, "why doesn't he tell me? I've told him. Doesn't that … I don't know, doesn't it kind of set a precedent? Like it's OK to be in love in front of me? His wife?"

Johnny shook his head.

"Dally don't see it that way. I don't think anybody ever told him they loved him till you came around. Probably doesn't even believe that ya mean it."

"But I _do _mean it. How could he not just understand that?"

"He don't have a lot of examples in front of him. I don't know. Probably feels like a trick every time you say you love him or every time you do something for him. Probably feels like …"

Johnny's voice trailed off, but Lucy didn't push it. It was too hard for either of them to talk about Dally. They were the two people who loved him most in the world, but there was nothing they could do to change him. Lucy was dumb enough to think that if she loved him just the right amount (not too overbearing but nothing dismissive, either), then maybe he'd want to change for her. But this wasn't some sort of backward fairytale. This was reality, and in reality, girls got knocked up by guys they married on impulsive dares who never loved them in the first place.

"Hey, Johnny?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you're good at showing people you love them? I mean, you and Dally grew up … similarly. I know he spent less time around Sadie's family, but I don't think that's it."

Johnny was quiet for a long time. He was worried that Lucy would ask something like this. He knew she wasn't trying to be rude. She wasn't trying to make him think of things he was trying hard to push to the back of his mind. She'd just grown up differently than the rest of them, and she didn't understand how delicate these conversations were. Lucy grew up as the kind of kid who could talk back to one of her folks, have a dialogue about why she shouldn't do that, and then have pancakes for breakfast the following Saturday morning. She wasn't trying to flaunt that. She could just never understand life outside of that.

"I don't know," Johnny said. "Everybody's different, I guess."

Lucy snorted. It was a stupid question, anyway. There was no explaining why Dally turned callous in the face of his parents' rejection. Maybe he had just been born that way. Maybe Johnny had been born sensitive, too. Maybe there was nothing Lucy could do to figure Dally out. She gripped her stomach again, wondering if this baby was doomed to the same fate – cold, hard, mean. The kid would have Lucy's genes, too, after all. It wasn't looking good for the baby.

"Even if he loves me, he's never gonna tell me," Lucy said. "Is he?"

"Dally don't play it like that. Ya knew that when you married him. Didn't ya?"

Lucy nodded. Of course she'd known that. She'd also known that she was stupid enough to believe that being married to her – having her influence on him – would soften up that rough exterior of his. Slowly (but certainly), Lucy was coming to grips with what she saw as the truth. Dally had a rough exterior, but that didn't make it a disguise. It was real. It was realer than Lucy could have ever imagined.

She saw Johnny's eyes flicker to her copy of _The Great Gatsby _on her bed. She smiled as she picked it up and showed it off for him. Of course. Despite his hero worship of Dally, Johnny didn't want to sit around and talk about him all night. It was too much for either of them.

"That cover sure is pretty," Johnny said.

"It's more than pretty," Lucy said. "It's the whole point of the book."

"I never read it."

"Really?"

"Naw. I think they tried to make me read it in school about a year ago, but I never … I don't like to read when a teacher's makin' me."

Lucy smiled. She opened the book a little wider.

"You want me to read it to you?" she asked.

Johnny gave her one of his bigger smiles. It was the happiest she'd been in days. Lilly had been distant lately. Being able to make Johnny smile, even for a second, felt like doing something for Lilly, too.

"If you want."

Lucy looked down at the first page and began to read. It was good practice for when the baby could hear her, so she'd take it.

"'In my younger and more vulnerable years,'" she read, "'my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.'"

* * *

When Darry answered the door, he was confused to find Dally on the doorstep. These days, the only time Dally came around if he was with Lucy, and she was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Darry's heart sank.

"Oh, Dal," he said. "Don't tell me you left her already."

"I ain't left anybody," Dally said. "I gotta see Soda."

Darry furrowed his brow. He'd never heard that one before. Dally had come to the house in search of him, in search of Ponyboy once (to return a copy of _East of Eden _that he said he'd swiped by mistake), and in search of Mrs. Curtis when she was still alive. Never in search of Sodapop.

"What do you want with Soda?"

"I just need to talk to him. 'S he here?"

"You sure you need to talk to him? Or are you gonna beat the living hell outta him?"

"Depends. He do somethin' to make me need to?"

"I don't think so."

"Then I ain't gonna beat him. I need to talk to him. Where is he?"

Darry sighed and moved out of the way so that Dally could step inside. His presence at the house still didn't make a lick of sense, but then again, neither had any of Dally's actions over the past year. So, Darry thought it was best not to question it.

"Soda's in his room," Darry said. "Sadie's helpin' him get ready for a date with Jane, so he don't got long."

"I don't care," Dally said. He paused and looked at Darry, who was doing an awful job of concealing the bizarre sense of worry he felt throughout his body.

"Hey, thanks."

That shocked Darry even more. Dally never said _thank you _and meant it.

"You're welcome."

Darry disappeared down the hallway, and Dally opened the door to Soda's room. Sure enough, there he was, in front of the mirror, slicking his hair back with oil and laughing with Sadie about how greasy was dapper from where they stood. As soon as they saw Dally, they drew in their laughter. He'd scared the living hell out of them.

"Do you just barge into all people's bedrooms, then?" Sadie asked.

"I make it a habit," Dally said. "I'm real interested in catchin' people in the act."

"Well, glory! You should become a private eye. Only they give a damn about what's legal and what's not."

"Only in the end. They do whatever it takes to get there."

"Sure."

Soda finished slicking back his hair and turned to Dally, half put out to see him there and half thrilled that he knew where to go. He must have been doing a good job sticking up for Lucy, after all.

"Whaddya want, Dally?"

"I wanna talk to you."

His eyes shifted to Sadie, who was sitting on the bed with a magazine on her lap. Earlier, she had been trying to figure out which musician Soda should look more like for his date with Jane. It wasn't her favorite game of all time, but anything where she got to be with her twin was the best. Dally pointed at her and then toward the door.

"You. Out."

Sadie stood up, throwing the magazine down on the bed as some sort of overdramatic protest.

"What? No! As far as I can see, you're about to have some real girly talk about _my _best friend, and also as far as I can see, I'm the only girl in the room. Doesn't that make me a kind of expert?"

"No. Now, get out."

"But Lucy is my _best friend_. No one is more qualified to talk about her than me. Do you know her favorite color? Her least favorite flavor of ice cream?"

Dally grabbed Sadie by the arm and was amused to see that she was really taking herself out of the room. Even Sadie knew what it meant to respect a guy's privacy.

"Her favorite color's purple," Dally said. "And she hates strawberry ice cream. Now, get out."

"If you have any questions, you know to defer to the expert."

"Bye, Sadie."

He slammed the door on her face, but he could hear her laughing from outside. It was OK. She'd known Dally too long.

Soda turned to Dally to ask him what he was doing there. When Sadie got home from Great Books earlier that day, she mentioned that Lucy seemed sad about letting Dally go over to Buck's for a poker game, but it was clear she didn't want to talk about it. Was that why Dally was here? He was going to ask him; though to his surprise, Dally spoke first.

"D'you think I love Lucy?"

It took all the strength in the world for Soda not to break out into the widest grin anyone had ever seen. There it was. It wasn't over. And Sadie was worried he was going to leave Lucy that night.

"Well, I don't know, Dally," Soda said. "Didn't know ya watched Lucy and Ricky on the TV when you was a kid."

"You know what I mean, man. My wife. Do I…?"

"D'you love your wife?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that somethin' you should know about yourself? I can't tell ya how you feel."

_Feel_. It was such a stupid word. It was right up there with _think_. The more Dally thought about things, the more he was feeling them, too. It was one thing to feel Lucy's lips on his body when she wasn't there. That was the kind of feeling he could handle. He couldn't handle feeling like he would do anything to take Lucy's place when she was suffering on the bathroom floor every morning, noon, and night. He couldn't handle feeling like he wanted to take on some of her pain so that she could focus more on her work … so that she didn't have to slog her way through classes just to avoid throwing up in the middle of a lecture hall. He couldn't handle feeling like if he didn't see Lucy within the next half an hour, he might just drop dead. He wanted to be able to give her what she needed, but he knew he didn't have it in him. After all, he'd spent the last nine years trying to forget how to love anything. Damn her for making him start to remember. Damn her for the day she woke up and inevitably realized she was wasting her time on him – a no-count hood who couldn't do a damn thing right even when he tried, so he became a no-count hood who didn't do a damn thing right on purpose. He was caught in a perpetual state of between-ness. He wanted to prove them right as much as he wanted to prove them wrong. But who were _they _anymore, anyway?

"It don't make any fuckin' sense," Dally said.

"Love ain't supposed to make sense," Soda said. "You don't just got a reason to love somebody. Just happens. Even when you fight it. It finds ya, I guess."

"She's so smart."

Soda had to fight his smile again. He knew what Dally meant when he said that Lucy was smart. But of course he deserved her. He deserved somebody who loved him, regardless of where he'd been and what he'd been through. And Lucy, for a reason Soda was sure she didn't understand, either, was that somebody.

"She is," Soda agreed. "That's why she loves you."

"Seems like a lie."

"It ain't. You know it ain't. She's told you to your face. And what? You just don't believe her?"

Dally made no reply. It was too obvious. Of course he didn't believe that Lucy loved him. No one ever had. What made him think she'd be the first? She knew too much about him to love him.

"She shouldn't be with me," Dally finally said. "She's smart."

"I know. We been over that."

They were quiet for a very long time before Soda asked a question he probably shouldn't have. Then again, Dally had asked it first.

"D'you love her?"

Dally exhaled loudly, trying to make it seem like he was annoyed with the question. It was easier that way. It meant he could stall. It meant he didn't have to think so much. Yet, no matter what he did, he couldn't stop seeing her face in his mind's eye … couldn't stop feeling her lips all over him without her even being there. She was everywhere. That didn't mean he was in love with her. That didn't mean he loved her at all.

Who was he trying to kid?

"How do you even figure somethin' like that?" Dally asked.

It nearly broke Soda's heart to hear Dally ask a question like that. He wasn't saying it to be sarcastic, either. Soda could tell. Dally didn't think he knew what love looked or felt like. Of course, Dally _could _love, but he didn't know it. Nobody ever taught him about love because nobody had ever loved him. Yet, he managed to figure out parts of it on his own. It spoke volumes, but Dally chose to be deaf to them.

"D'you give a damn what happens to her?" Soda asked. "D'you want her to be safe? Would you give up something of yours to keep her safe? Or even just if she asked you?"

"Those are easy questions, man," Dally said. "Of course I give a damn what happens to her. She's part of our outfit."

"OK," Soda said. "D'you look forward to seein' her? D'you feel like you don't wanna hang out on the streets with Shepard and his outfit anymore on account of you'd rather spend the night with her? When you're drunk or beat up, d'you want her to take care of you?"

Dally didn't say anything. It was too obvious that the answers to all of Soda's stupid questions were yes. Of course he'd rather be with his beautiful wife than fucking things up with Shepard. Of course he wanted Lucy to be the one to take care of him when he was falling apart. She was already good at it. He would take care of her, too. A guy didn't just take favors from somebody without returning them, especially not when that somebody was his wife.

"What's any of that got to do with love?" Dally asked, well aware that every question had to do with love. "Huh?"

Soda looked at him, his eyes glazed over with something in between joy and sympathy. It made Dally's stomach turn. That look resembled pity, and there was very little he hated more than pity … especially when the pity was coming from one of his own.

"I can't tell you if you love Lucy," he said. "But I think you already know the answer. For you."

Again, Dally couldn't bring himself to respond. He knew why he'd gone to see Soda about his problem. He'd known addicts before. They were always looking for enablers. When it came to loving Lucy, Sodapop Curtis was nothing more than his enabler and his scapegoat. If it turned out he loved her, but she'd changed her mind about him, he didn't need to own up to it. He'd just have to say that Soda told him one thing, but now, he knew something different. That was how he would do it. Of course.

Without a word, he walked out of the room, out of the house, and toward Lucy – toward home.

* * *

When Dally found Lucy, she was lying on their bed, staring at the ceiling, talking out loud to someone who wasn't there. As soon as she heard him enter, she jolted upward and held onto her midsection like she'd just been caught trying to cast the thing out of her body. Part of Dally wished that was what she was doing and that it had worked, but more of him knew that it wasn't true. He was stuck with that baby. He was stuck with Lucy. But was that really such a bad thing?

It wasn't a bad thing. It was a scary thing. If he admitted he loved Lucy, then he'd have to be there all the time. He'd have to open himself up to a world of pain. He knew what love and attachments meant when he was ten years old. They meant getting your head split open on the kitchen floor and trying to scramble to your feet while your eight-year-old sister sobs and screams in a terror she's long since repressed. While loving Lucy and his own baby probably wouldn't go down like that, part of him was convinced that it was in his blood to destroy.

But the minute he looked into Lucy's eyes, something inside of him began to warm up. It wasn't overwhelming, but he noticed it. One look into Lucy Bennet's eyes, and he knew he'd never hurt her. He wouldn't. He couldn't. He …

He still couldn't make himself think it, even if he felt that it could be true. He'd thought about it the whole way home. How he was sure he'd be lost without her. How he thought she was funny and tough and beautiful wrapped into one package. How she was the only person who didn't run in fear every time he entered a room. How she could both challenge and outwit him. She was so fucking smart.

"What are you doing here?" Lucy asked.

"What's it look like? I still live here, don't I?"

Lucy sniffed. It sounded like she was holding back tears. Dally wanted to mess up whoever was making her cry, especially after he quickly realized it was him.

"I thought you were gonna take off tonight," she said. "Thought Buck's was a cover and that you were gonna run off to … God knows where."

Dally shook his head. He took a seat next to her on the bed. At first, she was icy about him sitting next to her like that, but she came around. Something felt warm inside of him. Something that Lucy couldn't precisely place. It wasn't unfamiliar, but it was new all the same. She couldn't make sense of it, but she knew it was true.

"I couldn't just leave ya here," he said.

"Right," Lucy said. "You couldn't leave me here because the government says the baby depends on you. And you don't want to get your head blown off in a fight that means nothing to you. I'm the one doing you a favor here. Remember?"

Dally shook his head. Somewhere, he knew that Lucy didn't believe a word of what she said. He recognized what she was doing – lying to herself about a good thing just because she was afraid of seeing her hopes dashed. She couldn't pull the wool over his eyes on that one. He was the one who created it.

"I ain't leavin'."

"Because you don't wanna get shipped off to the jungle and die there."

"No. That ain't all. I'm stayin' because …"

But he didn't say it. He couldn't. He knew it was true, of course. Maybe he'd known it all along, but he still didn't have it in him to say the words that Lucy wanted (and deserved) to hear. He gave her a slow, sad smile and hoped she got the picture. When she reached for his hand, and he didn't attempt to yank it away, he knew she understood what he was trying to tell her.

"Don't make me say it," he pleaded.

Lucy shook her head and squeezed Dally's hand tighter. He was still letting her, which amazed her. Maybe he really did mean it.

"I won't."

It hurt to say. She wanted to hear those words come out of his mouth more than anything. Then again, as she'd rationalized earlier, they were just words. He'd done plenty to prove it already, like in that very moment.

"But ya know I mean it?"

Lucy nodded. She couldn't have known what a relief that was for Dally. He let out a long, low breath. It was over. He'd done as much as he knew how.

"I don't want you worryin' that I'm gonna leave you anymore," Dally said. "You dig?"

Lucy nodded again. Dally muttered something about it being over; then he kissed her lips and asked her if she was ready to go to bed yet. Based on the long, deep kiss she gave him, he could tell that Lucy had something a little different in mind. How could he stand to leave something like this behind? She was so smart, and she had the damn softest lips of anyone he'd ever kissed. He couldn't give that up for anything – fear and rage alike.

Dally told Lucy that she shouldn't worry about him leaving her. At the time, he thought he really meant it. But what he should have realized—what they both should have realized – was that you couldn't rid an old dog of all his old tricks, and you couldn't teach an unloved man how to love overnight.

* * *

**Well, that was something of a diatribe! I'm exhausted. It's also the first time I ever wrote Sylvia in anything, and it was really important to me that she wasn't some seductress, so I hope (!) I pulled some sort of subversion off. Yikes.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. I quote **_**The Great Gatsby **_**by F. Scott Fitzgerald several times in this chapter, which is six years away from entering the public domain. Here we go!**


	10. Chapter 10

By the time Lucy's nineteenth birthday rolled around, she was grateful for three things: One, that she had gotten her first college-level _A _on an analysis of disposable language in _The Great Gatsby _(Dally asked her if she was surprised she'd gotten an _A_; Soda asked her why anyone would throw their words in the garbage.); two, Dally was still around and hadn't hinted toward leaving; three, her pregnancy wasn't at all showing, and she could get away with wearing anything she wanted.

By the time Dally's nineteenth birthday (and their first anniversary, which amazed everyone, as they never thought they'd make it more than a month) rolled around two weeks later, she began to show just a little bit. But it was enough to drive Lucy out of her mind.

"Would you fuckin' relax, please?" Dally begged. He was watching her repeatedly lift her dress up and down; critically examining what she thought was some grotesque bulge. He could hardly see a thing, but if she insisted it was there, it was easier to play along. Lucy was too exhausting to fight with all the time. He'd learned to choose his battles.

"I look awful," Lucy said. "Just … awful."

"No, ya don't. And if you say that one more time, I'm gonna be mad."

Lucy bit her lip to keep from yelling at Dally. She was amazed that after a year of being married to her, he hadn't figured out that she felt rather like her own kind of Wolf Man. Of course, the Wolf Man was obsessed with the size and shape of his nose (which Freud, of course, made all about that stupid castration complex of his), and Lucy with the size and shape of her stomach, but it was relative. She pulled down her dress, took a deep breath, and tried to rationalize, though she felt rather far removed from rationality at the time.

"You don't get it," Lucy said. "I've never looked at myself right. This is just making it harder and harder."

"No, you liftin' up your skirt is makin' it harder and harder. Damn shame you gotta get to class in half an hour."

"You know, I hear that's more than enough time for most men."

"I ain't most men. I like doin' you 's much 's I like you doin' me."

"That seems like a lie."

"I'm serious. Skip that stupid little history class of yours an' I'll show ya."

Lucy turned around from her spot in front of the mirror and pulled out the chair from her desk, standing on it so that she could properly kiss her husband. She was about a foot shorter than Dally and could manage to kiss him without standing on a chair, but it was still too much fun to be taller than Dallas Winston.

"I'd love to miss class," Lucy said, "but you know I can't."

"Why not? History's not gonna change. Lincoln's still gonna get shot in the head. _Ulysses _is still gonna be a dumb name for a president."

"I'm … both impressed and disturbed that you only seem to know Civil War history."

Dally smirked. If Lucy was as smart as she thought she was, she'd know that the reason he knew all that was because _she _was the one taking a class on Civil War history, and _she _was the one leaving her books scattered around the apartment for anyone to read if they were bored enough. Lucy gave him a look, and he knew it meant she wanted a hand hopping off the chair. He gave it to her without question. Things had been pretty peaceful between them since that night Dally had run into Sylvia – that night he'd talked to Soda about whether or not he loved Lucy. He hadn't told Lucy he loved her (or even thought about it, really), but he didn't think it mattered. Lucy must have known what he meant. They were getting along. They were having great sex, especially since Lucy's morning-noon-and-night sickness had ended a couple weeks earlier. And he was offering her help off a chair when, not two years earlier, he would have left her to fall and yelled at her for having a stupid fear of heights, anyway. Now … well, now, her fear of any and all heights was almost _cute_. _Cute_. He hated to think the word, but it was the only one that seemed to fit.

"I'll be back before five," Lucy said. "I've got history and math today."

"I know that."

Lucy felt herself beginning to blush. It was strange, she thought, to still feel like she had a secret crush on the hood she'd been married to for 363 days. Maybe it was his job to know what her schedule was. Nevertheless, it was flattering that he remembered.

"Well, I'll be back before you know it," she said. "I'll see you then?"

"I ain't goin' nowhere."

Lucy felt her heart start to sink, but she recovered. It had been quite some time since Dally said anything about leaving. That didn't change the fact that she still worried that she'd key open the door one day to find everything of his just gone. Sadie told her it had been long enough already, and she didn't have to worry anymore. Lucy knew it was never that simple, particularly not when it was Dally.

"I'll see you tonight," Lucy said. She started to go out the door, but she turned around to look at Dally one more time. He drew his lips into a flat line and stared at her, immediately knowing what she was going to say next.

"Oh, and, Dally?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy birthday."

She didn't give him time to respond. She slammed the door behind her, and Dally could hear her pattering down the stairs like she knew she'd done something wrong. It was a shame she hadn't turned back around to see him. If she'd turned around, she would have seen that he was smiling like he meant it. After all, thanks to her stupid dare, this was the first birthday he could remember being grateful to see.

* * *

Lucy's math class finished at quarter to two, and on Wednesdays, she usually met up with Sadie and the others at the high school. Arguably, it was pathetic to hang out around her old high school months after she graduated, but if it meant seeing Sadie, then Lucy didn't care if it was pathetic. If Sadie were trapped in a kaleidoscope for eternity, Lucy would look into it every hour, on the hour. It was what they did.

The other girls quickly found Lucy on the front lawn. Jane gave her a quick hug and told her that she had to run and meet Soda at the DX, and Lilly stepped forward to make sure Lucy knew she was starting to show. Lucy turned beet red and thought that maybe dying sounded like a good idea.

"Lilly!" Carrie was almost screeching. "You can't just _say _that to somebody!"

"What?" Lilly asked. "I don't think she looks _bad_. She just looks pregnant."

"What's wrong with looking pregnant?" Sadie asked. "It's what she is."

"What's wrong is that people are gonna see her, and they're gonna talk about her."

"Lilly, people talked about me all year last year," Lucy said. "I think I can handle them talking about me now."

"Yeah, but can you bear to hear them say stuff like, 'I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later' or 'She was reading all the time. Didn't one of those books teach her about condoms?'"

Sadie smacked her palm against her face, and Lucy narrowed her eyes at Lilly. She loved her – really, she did – but Lilly's lack of tact was exhausting for anyone who knew her, even Lucy.

"Those things are awful specific to be hypothetical," Lucy said. "Who knows I'm pregnant?"

"Everyone. This ain't a big neighborhood, Lucy. People hear things. They talk about 'em. I never told anybody to their faces … unless they asked."

"Lilly!"

"Oh, can it, Carrie."

Lucy sighed. She supposed she should have known that it didn't matter where she went to school now or how many hours she spent locked up in her apartment, trying to hide her pregnancy from the public. People had a way of suspecting things, and Lilly had a way of never learning how to keep her mouth shut. Lucy tried not to be upset with her. After all, Lilly was still young, and as Sadie and Soda pointed out to her before, she needed gossip. It was how she coped. Lucy had to support it, she figured, even if it was at her expense.

"It doesn't matter," Lucy said. "I'm gonna be strolling a baby around these parts by myself sooner or later. Won't be able to claim Immaculate Conception, either."

"No, you won't," Carrie said. "I still can't believe you didn't think this through."

Lucy didn't say anything. It would have been easy to throw out some sort of snarky remark – like if Carrie were ever in the position to have sex with someone without obsessing over the grave moral implications, maybe she wouldn't spend much time thinking it through, either. But she didn't say a word. It would have just hurt Carrie even more. Just like Lilly needed her gossip rags, Carrie needed her moral philosophy books.

"I don't think it's a bad thing you're startin' to show, Lucy," Katie said.

"Well, thanks, Kate," Lucy said. "I'm horrified, but I'm glad to know you're not. Of course, I'm the one whose body it's happening to, so …"

"Aww, c'mon. Gimme a break. I was just gonna say I'm excited to hear what you're gonna name it."

Lucy's skin alternated between hot and cold. She was about five months along, and she still hadn't thought very much about what she might name the kid. It would have to be Jack if it was a boy – that wasn't negotiable, and she had already promised her father. Her friends knew that. Her friends also insisted that she was going to have a girl, so they didn't care very much. Lilly was still rooting for her own name, despite Lucy's insistence that she would never do that. In truth, she just didn't want to think about names. It made the baby real. It made Dally's inevitable departure even more real. Even though he told her everyday that he wasn't going anywhere (and he'd stopped adding in that part about using the baby as a way to dodge the draft), she didn't believe him. She knew how to sell a lie just as well as he did. From her point of view, he had to be lying. He may have gotten into less trouble over the past year, but that didn't mean he stopped being Dallas Winston. He could never.

"I'm gonna name it something when it's born," Lucy said. "I haven't thought about it."

"That's a lie," Katie said. "Remember your Coke bottle? What was its name? Flo?"

Lucy sighed. She had a name in mind. She'd had it in mind since the day after she found out she was pregnant. But she wasn't about to tell anyone (especially not in front of Lilly Cade) because she didn't want Dally to know. Even if he wasn't going to leave, she didn't want him to have any idea that secretly, when he wasn't looking (and sometimes when he was), she thought about what it might be like if they could ever manage to be a happy family of three. Of course, how could you make a happy family with someone who could barely stand to hear the word _happy_?

"What about Josephine?" Katie asked. "Ya like that _Little Women _book, don't ya?"

"I've _read _that _Little Women _book," Lucy said. "I hate it. If I were going to marry a professor, I'd make sure it wasn't a German professor. Plus, all that death."

"OK, so, nothing German," Katie said. "Scout?"

"Yeah, I don't need my kid to be recruited for some bullshit organization, even if they do sell cookies."

"Anne?" Katie asked.

"Lilly!" Lilly said.

"Emma?" Carrie.

"Stradlater!" Sadie.

Lucy tried her best to conceal a smile, but she couldn't. There were too many reasons why Sadie was her best friend. Her ability to always know when Lucy needed a laugh was one of them.

"For a boy or a girl, Sadie?"

"Either. Both."

Lucy was met with another wave of love for Sadie. If everything fell apart in a day, she was sure Sadie and the Curtis house would still be standing. Lucy never liked being an only child. Initially (before the court mandate), she'd chosen books to imagine brothers, sisters, and friends where she didn't have any. But as soon as she met Sadie … it was like they were all real.

"I can hardly believe you don't have any names in mind," Katie said. "You sure do read enough of 'em."

"If you insist, I _do _know what I'd name my daughter," Lucy said. "But I'm not gonna tell you. Some things are better kept secret."

"Like … the fact that you want your husband to love you?" Lilly asked.

Lucy turned red and didn't say anything. It occurred to her, suddenly, why she insisted on hanging around her friends at her old high school. Where it was all too easy to push down her truths when she was all alone at the store and all alone in the apartment, it was all too easy to shed light on them when she was with her friends. Her friends were her enablers – her scapegoats. That way, if she finally had the gall to remind Dally, out loud, that she loved him and wanted him to stay around, and he rejected her, she could blame it on her friends for encouraging her. It felt like the perfect plan, even though Lucy knew it wasn't.

"Yeah, Lil," Lucy said. "Like that."

"I knew it."

"Your impulsivity's having a birthday on Friday, isn't it?" Sadie asked. "A year since you and Dally interpreted my dare the way you wanted."

"Hard to believe one of us hasn't killed the other, isn't it?"

"Mmm, that you haven't killed him, specifically."

"You got plans, Lucy?" Katie asked.

"Usually, no," Lucy said. "That's kind of why I'm pregnant."

"You know what I mean."

Lucy laughed. A couple of weeks earlier, Soda had taken Jane out to mark a year since they'd started going together, but Dally wasn't Soda. Dally might have remembered the day they got married, but it was just a Friday for him. He couldn't let it be anything else. He didn't know how. On their first anniversary, Lucy figured she would sit at home with _Hamlet _(which she was exhausted to read for what felt like the three hundredth time) while Dally did whatever it was he needed to do – maybe to cope with the fact that he was still married, and Lucy was still pregnant.

Except it really hadn't been like that for quite a long time. Dally was staying in more and more often. Last time Lucy had gone to a rodeo with him, he took her hand _in front of people_. He'd never done a thing like that before, unless Lucy counted the time he stuck his tongue down her throat in front of the judge at their (legal) wedding, which she didn't. He was even making offhand remarks about the baby. On their way back from the Slash J, he murmured something about needing to get a steadier job in a few months. He didn't say it was about the baby, but what else could it have been about? Lucy let it go, but she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since he said it. She wasn't sure where it was coming from. She knew better, however, than to question it.

"No plans," Lucy said. "We've been married a year, and I don't think we've ever been on a date."

"How very Jane Austen of you," Sadie said.

"Actually, it was really more of a harlequin."

"So, the unwritten Austen epilogues, then."

Lucy laughed again. Inexplicably, she thought of Jane, and how if Jane had been standing there, she would have found a way to liken Lucy and Dally to Romeo and Juliet despite the fact that they had nothing in common. Jane would have said that it was a pity that Lucy had never been on a proper date. Of course she would have. The only reason she wasn't standing there with the other girls was because she was busy on a date with Soda … except …

"Sadie?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah?"

"Isn't Soda working really late tonight? I could've sworn he said something when I was at your house yesterday."

"He is. Why?"

"Nothing. Just wondering why Jane lied to me."

In not two hours' time, Lucy would find out why Jane lied to her and what happened while she was there. In not two hours' time, that peace she felt in her apartment above Great Books would begin to shake. But there was no way she could have known. The girls brushed Jane's deception off as just "Jane being Jane," and that was, they figured, the end of it.

* * *

Not two hours after discovering Jane's fib, Lucy unlocked the door at Great Books to find someone sitting at the counter, hiding behind a copy of _Crime and Punishment_. She recognized the legs and shoes immediately. She didn't see them all the time, but each time she did, they were the same.

"Violet?"

"Ya know, I said I wouldn't bother readin' this book, seein' as I can't pronounce this fucker's name," Violet said, still hiding her face behind the book. "But the more I get into it, the more I get it. _Crime and Punishment_. Don't sound half bad to me."

Instantly, Lucy sensed that something was wrong. Violet typically only dropped by to deliver bad news, and from what she could tell, Dally wasn't upstairs. Her heart slowly dropped into her knees as she gradually made her way over to the counter where Violet sat.

"I never figured you for Dostoevsky," Lucy said, trying to keep the tone as light as she could, even though she knew it would piss Violet right off.

"If you're tryin' to say the guy's name out loud so I learn how to pronounce it, better stop now. I'm not fallin' for that bullshit."

Lucy bit her lip in embarrassment. That was exactly what she was trying to do.

"Violet," Lucy said. "What're you doin' here?"

"Came to see Dally. Knew he wouldn't be home yet. Thought I'd wait for him."

"Yeah, but why did you need to see Dally?"

In what felt like a flash, Violet slammed the book pages-down on the counter and looked Lucy square in the eye. If Lucy had been more squeamish, she would have gasped.

"Needed to tell him that split lips are fashionable this fall," Violet said. "I'm real in."

If it had only been a split lip, Lucy wouldn't have felt all that pain surging through her body. Violet's lip was certainly bloodied, but so was her nose. It may have been broken, what with all the bruising around it and around her eyes. Her cheeks had red streaks on them, and Lucy couldn't tell if it was her blood or someone else's. The longer she looked, the more she wanted to vomit. A year ago, she wouldn't have felt sick to look at Violet like that. It was all part of living in the neighborhood. Now, she wanted to faint. Maybe what her mother kept saying was true: having kids makes you tougher and softer at the same time.

"Violet!" Lucy said in one of those motherly whisper-shouts she used to hate so much. "What happened to you?"

"'F I told you I walked into a door, would you believe me?"

"I would if you told me that the door led to a garbage disposal."

"That's funny. I'd laugh if it didn't hurt so fuckin' bad."

"Violet, what happened? Did your father do this to you?"

Violet snorted, as though Lucy's question had been childishly stupid. Lucy bristled. It no longer seemed appropriate to use _childish _and _stupid _as synonyms.

"Course not," Violet said. "I don't even remember the last time I saw him. Plus, I could take him."

Lucy nodded, but there was pain in her heart, too. Maybe Dally was right. Maybe Violet really didn't remember that night in the kitchen when Violet was eight years old. Of course, Lucy knew it wasn't her place to remind her. She looked around for anything to put on her face … anything to stop the swelling and the bleeding. She must have looked for two whole minutes before realizing they were in the store, not the apartment, and they should probably go up there to take care of things.

As Lucy helped Violet up the stairs, Violet mentioned something about bleeding all over that book and how nobody was going to want to buy it now.

"Unless they're out for my blood," she added. "In that case, it'd be a pretty good trick."

"I'll pay for the book," Lucy said as she unlocked the apartment door. Violet sat right down on the shoddy armchair Dally had lifted from a junkyard a few months earlier, and Lucy went straight for the bathroom to get a wet washcloth. It was something, she thought. As she handed the rag to Violet, she asked her again what happened.

"I got into a fight," Violet said.

"You know what I mean," Lucy pressed. "What were the circumstances?"

"Well, ya know what they say. Girls _can _be cruel."

"Another girl did this to you?"

"Don't look so surprised, Betty Friedan. Broads can get college educated and beat up by each other all on the same day. Look at us."

"Where were you when it happened? How did it happen?"

Violet was going to say something, but just like on cue, Dally turned his key in the door and walked into the room. Initially, he didn't even see Violet in the armchair. He just started talking and asking questions.

"Why's there a bloody book downstairs?" he asked. "Did ya think it'd make a good shield or somethin'?"

"A book that thick probably could," Violet said.

The sound of his sister's voice was jarring. The blood on his sister's face was even more jarring. Blood was usually a welcome sight for Dally. It reminded him that he was still alive, but at any moment, he could still die. Both thoughts had always been comforting, at best. But he never had learned to tolerate the sight of blood on or anywhere near Violet. It was too familiar.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

"What comforting words," Violet said. "At least your wife got me this washcloth. By the way, it'd be real nice if the two of you stopped treatin' me like I can't fight my own battles."

"Ya can't fight 'em if ya get beat up like that. Thought you were a better fighter than that."

"I'm fine. You should see the other broad."

"A broad did this to you?"

"You been hangin' around Little Miss too long. You used to know a girl can deck ya just as good as a guy."

"I ain't … look, I wanna know _who _did this to you, OK?"

"Why does it matter to you? You never hit girls."

"I don't." His eyes flickered over to Lucy, who was wondering how in the world she ended up in a situation like this. "But she can."

"Me?" It wasn't that Lucy was unwilling. Violet was family now, and it seemed only right to beat the piss out of people for family. The problem was that the baby inside of her was family, too, and she didn't want to do anything that might hurt it. Of course, she'd have to keep quiet about that. Before Lucy could say anything, Violet hissed with painful laughter. It sounded like she had a broken rib. Lucy flinched.

"She ain't gonna want to fight the broad when she finds out who she was," Violet said.

"You can't pawn this off on Sadie," Lucy said. "I was with her until I got home."

"I ain't gonna pawn it off on Sadie Curtis. Never would have been Sadie Curtis to begin with. She's one of them no-bull girls."

"Stop draggin' us along, V," Dally said.

"Right. Well, you know. I never _was _able to solve my differences with Jane Randle. Guess she wasn't able to solve her differences with me, either."

Lucy's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She knew Jane wasn't an innocent – not completely, anyway. She'd gotten into quite the brawl in the high-school parking lot when she was only in the eighth grade. She also knew that Violet and Jane had never managed to get along, but she never figured Jane would jump Violet.

Then again, it would explain why Jane had lied to her earlier that day.

* * *

Lucy and Dally told Violet to stay in the apartment while they went to the Curtis place – figure out what was really going on with Jane. When she asked what the hell she was supposed to do in there, Dally threw a Robert Browning anthology at her, straight from the pile on the floor.

"Learn somethin'," he said. "If you can't fight with your fists, maybe you can start poisoning people."

They were out the door, and Lucy asked Dally how he knew that Browning wrote a lot about women who poisoned people.

"C'mon, Bennet," he said. "Ya can't just leave books around for a guy to trip on in the middle of the night and not expect him to start readin' a few pages here an' there. Can ya?"

If the guy was Dallas Winston, she figured it was a safe bet he'd never crack one of her books. Then, of course, she thought back to that stunt he pulled with _Villette _the night after she first told him she loved him. She really ought to stop underestimating him.

On their way to the Curtis place, Lucy wondered how she'd manage not to lunge for Jane's throat the minute she saw her. She'd lied to her about going out with Soda after school. She'd lied to all of them. Was she always planning to go jump Violet? How did she even know where to find her? Lucy didn't even know where Violet worked, and she was her sister-in-law. If Lucy didn't know, it seemed hard to believe Jane could have figured it out. And what use did Jane have to jump Violet, anyway? Jane could be as violent as Steve when she wanted to be, but it was never without cause. Violet must have …

Lucy caught a glimpse of Dally in her periphery, and she shut off those thoughts. She knew Dally wouldn't like it if she accused Violet of asking for a fight. Plus, she didn't really believe that anyone ever asked for a fight. Notoriously, of course, Violet Winston was a provocateur, but that didn't mean she deserved to bleed in her own land of counterpane – particularly when the counterpane was Lucy's.

Ponyboy let them into the house. Darry was working late, Sadie was out with Johnny, and Soda had left the DX early to take care of Jane. Pony told them that Soda and Jane were in the bathroom, but he hadn't needed to specify. Anyone could have heard Jane whimpering and hissing in pain from there. She took off down the hall and stopped at the bathroom door. This time, she really did gasp.

When Violet said that they ought to see the other broad, she wasn't just making a cute joke. Jane was almost unrecognizable. Where Violet's eyes were purple, Jane's were just plain black. Lucy could tell that Violet had managed to yank out a few clumps of Jane's hair. Her lip was split deeper than Violet's, and there was a gash on Jane's forehead that Lucy thought she'd never see outside of a rubber Halloween mask. It could have been the hormones—it had to be, as Lucy was usually much sturdier than this—but she felt like she could pass out. Dally must have sensed it, since from behind her, she felt his arms reach under her arms and hold her up. That was something she'd have to think about later. In the moment, she could only think about Jane. She was no longer angry that Jane had lied to her. All she cared about was that Jane would be OK.

"Jane?"

Slowly (Her neck was in quite a lot of pain, of course), she turned to look at Lucy. She winced, like she anticipated that age-old Bennet wrath.

"Hey, Lucy," she said. "What's new with you?"

* * *

Lucy, Dally, Soda, and Jane took their places in the living room, trying to put some sort of rhyme or reason to what had happened between Jane and Violet. Ponyboy dismissed himself to go read the book that Carrie had recently let him borrow, which saved Soda a lot of trouble. He was going to have to tell Pony to beat it, and he wasn't up for being the bad cop that night. Jane was already pissed at him for stinging her with the rubbing alcohol. He didn't need his kid brother mad at him, too. When he and Jane sat on the couch to face Lucy and Dally (both of whom insisted on standing the entire time), he grabbed her hand for support, but it wasn't any use. Every part of Jane's body hurt too much.

"I don't even know where to start," Lucy said.

"What makes you think you're the one who's gotta start it?" Dally asked.

"Well, Jane's my friend, and Violet's my sister-in-law. I feel sort of caught in the middle."

"Wait a minute," Soda said. "Jane. You didn't tell me the other girl was Violet Winston." He turned to Dally.

"How _is _your sister, Dally?"

The worst part was that he was being genuine.

"Pleasantries can be dispensed later," Lucy said.

"Or never at all," Jane added. "I think I'd like that."

Lucy sighed. She didn't know why she'd placed herself in the middle of this one, but she felt the need to fight for someone – to protect whomever she could. It didn't make sense; yet it coursed through her veins like it had always been there.

"Jane," Lucy tried again. "What happened? Starting with why you lied to all of us after school today. We knew you weren't going out with Soda. Where were you going?"

Jane sighed. She pointed behind Lucy to a corner in the living room. Lucy furrowed her brow in confusion, but Dally, who understood Jane's cue immediately, walked over to a paper bag in the corner and picked it up.

"Open it," Jane said.

Dally reached into the bag and pulled out a pale pink onesie. He frowned at it and then frowned at Jane. While he frowned, Soda nearly had a laugh. The frown was so pronounced; it felt like Dally was fighting some kind of smile.

"The fuck is this?"

"It's for the baby," Jane said. "I've been savin' money to get you something nice to put her in when she comes home from the hospital. I know you don't know if she's gonna be a girl. I just gotta feeling."

"Savin' money or stealin' it?"

"They're kinda one and the same for me."

Lucy closed her eyes and tried not to look annoyed. She also tried not to look relieved. Even if Jane had instigated the fight, at least it wasn't what she set out to do. That onesie, annoying as it was, was evidence enough.

"I knew it'd bug you if you knew I was buyin' something for the baby," Jane said. "So I said I was goin' out with Soda. Figured you'd believe me."

"It doesn't matter what you were trying to do," Lucy said. "What matters is why you look like you knocked like hell on death's door, and he almost let you in before changing his mind at the last second."

Jane tipped her head back on the couch, wincing in pain. It sounded like she had a broken rib, too. Soda got up, mumbling something about ice, as though it would help. Lucy thought Jane ought to go to a hospital, but she could hear Steve complaining about the bills (not to mention the trouble they could get in with the cops) even when he wasn't there. Either way, Lucy still didn't know whether or not she should be angry with Jane. It seemed like she had to hate anyone who'd beat the tar out of her husband's sister, especially when her husband's sister grew up the way she did (and Jane wasn't ignorant to that). Then again, Jane had been her friend for much longer than she'd even known Violet, and it had to be her responsibility to hate anyone who beat up her friend. And then _again_, life was unfair, and anyone could get jumped anywhere, any time. It didn't matter how you grew up or how you were connected to Lucy Bennet, as much as Lucy wished that were the case.

"I ran into Violet on the way out of the store," Jane said. "We never got along. I was gonna ignore her."

"Then what?" Dally asked, surprising everyone in the room. "You thought it'd be a good idea to jump her just 'cause she don't like you?"

"Of course not. I'd never go after somebody unless they went after me first."

"You ain't worth V's time."

"Well, looks like you're wrong about that. I walked past her. I said hello, since I know how to be a little bit polite. Then she called me a bottle blonde …"

"Y'are a bottle blonde. You can't tell me ya threw the first punch at my sister for statin' the facts."

It was the strangest and most inappropriate timing, but as Lucy watched Dally push all these questions on Jane, she felt her heart begin to flutter. She hated that he was interrogating one of her best friends like she was a murderer, of course. Nonetheless, the way he was trying to defend his sister … maybe he had it in him to be a decent father, after all, and not just because he was dodging the draft. Later, she'd come to realize that was probably the first time she felt the baby move.

"There's no way you only said hello," Lucy said. "I know you, Jane."

Jane grumbled something that Lucy couldn't quite hear. Then, she admitted that she'd called Violet a number of names before finally throwing the first punch. Lucy almost vomited when she heard some of the words Jane said the two had exchanged.

"It was like she was lettin' go of years' worth of shit between us," Jane said. "Kept swearin' at me, like the sight of me was too much for her to handle. It didn't make any sense."

Dally didn't say anything, mostly because it made a lot of sense to him. He knew Violet fairly well (not as well as he would have liked, considering he was her brother), and she was like him. It wasn't that the Winston kids couldn't feel. It was that they felt _everything. _They felt everything as deeply as bawl babies like Soda and poets like Pony. But where guys like Sodapop and Ponyboy were taught that it was OK to feel whatever they needed to, the Winston kids learned how to get tough and shut up. Nobody cared how they felt. They could be tough and quiet until they had no choice but to blow up. The sight of Jane's face was enough to do it for Violet. It made perfect sense to Dally. Unfortunately, he was the only person in the world who saw where she must have been coming from.

"She said enough shit about me, so I felt it was within my rights to just fuckin' deck her," Jane said. "She decked me back. Harder. But you can see that."

"You started the fight?" Lucy asked. She wasn't necessarily surprised. She just wanted to be sure before she did what she knew was bound to piss off her husband.

"I threw the first punch," Jane said. "But Violet started the fight."

"Ya could've walked away," Dally said.

"And that's what you would have done?"

Dally made no reply. He didn't need to. Despite the fact that he hadn't been hauled into the station since his (legal) wedding day, he still hadn't turned down a good chance to hit a guy who really deserved it. And he was sure that Violet _had _deserved Jane's fists in her face. That didn't mean he needed to hear about it. He was quickly returning to the way it felt to get his head slammed into the kitchen counter when he was ten years old … returning to the way Violet had screamed, paralyzed, and unaware of what to do to help him.

_Happy fuckin' birthday to me_, he thought.

"Tell ya what," Jane said. "I might've started that fight, but your sister fuckin' finished it."

Lucy felt her heart sink. On the one hand, she wanted to support Violet. Though she didn't know the whole story, she knew that Jane could be a little snippy and a little gossipy, which was bound to bother somebody like Violet Winston, whose privacy was all too important to her. Jane had probably been pretty awful to Violet when they were little kids, and Violet probably had no healthy way of dealing with those memories. She wanted to help Violet if she could, although something told her Violet wouldn't be so gracious to that offer.

But then, there was Jane. She was much worse off than Violet, and Violet looked terrible when Lucy found her in the store. According to Sadie, Jane wasn't the same girl now that she was when they were young kids. She was much sweeter and considerate now – the kind of girl who snuck out to buy your unborn baby a onesie out of the goodness of her heart. There was certain darkness in Jane, which Lucy had spotted from the beginning. Regardless, she didn't deserve to be Violet Winston's punching bag, no matter how much trauma Violet had gone through and blamed Jane for instigating. After gazing upon her black eyes one more time, Lucy rushed to the couch and took her seat next to Jane. She put her hand on her knee and whispered something kind right to her.

Dally felt a month's worth of bottled-up rage begin to flood through his body. Maybe he should have been more understanding. Jane and Lucy had been friends since Lucy moved to Tulsa back in '62. She was inclined to sympathize with her friend. At the time, of course, that wasn't how Dally saw it. When he looked at Lucy sit next to Jane on that couch, as though Jane was completely blameless, he could only think of one thing: His wife had chosen her loyalty, and it wasn't to his – to _their _– family.

"Are you fuckin' kidding me?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're takin' Jane's side. V's up in our apartment with bloody rags all around her after she came to us lookin' for help, and you're takin' Jane's side."

Jane tried to make herself smaller on the couch. It didn't work. She hadn't even thought about what it would mean for the gang if she fought with Violet Winston. Just as it had been taboo for Jane to start dating Sodapop, it was even more taboo for one of the gang's sisters to beat the hell out of another one of their sisters. She was just so in the moment … so filled with anger. It was hard to curb something like that. Jane would have apologized right to Dally, but it didn't make a difference. A rift was coming, and she had caused it when she threw the first punch. She felt kind of like that guy who shot the Archduke whatever – the one she'd recently learned about in her history class for the fourth time.

"I'm not taking anybody's side," Lucy tried to explain. "I just don't know why I'd be angry with Jane, since she's not the one who started to go after Violet."

"It doesn't fuckin' matter who goes after V or who goes after Jane. It matters that you'd take your friend's side when the other chick layin' in bed and suffering is _my _sister. Ya pick some girl over your own family."

"Family doesn't have anything to do with it," Lucy said. "If Violet was egging Jane on, then she was egging Jane on. It's plain. It's simple. It's almost a bagel."

"That don't mean Jane gets to beat the shit out of her."

"And you would have done something different?"

Dally could hardly even see Lucy. A reddish hue was coloring his entire field of vision. The feeling was confusing. He'd been angry in front of Lucy before. She'd stood by and waited for him to come out of it – well, as much out of it as he could, after years of learning to turn everything into anger. Yet, he'd never been precisely angry _with _Lucy before.

"It doesn't fuckin' matter what I would've done!" He was yelling now, and it would have scared Lucy if she weren't in a fighting mood herself. "My sister is upstairs in our apartment, bleedin' and dealin' with broken ribs because of her!"

"And if you couldn't tell, Jane is much worse off. Violet _provoked _her. What was she supposed to do?"

"She could've walked away."

"You never would have done that. You would have beaten the shit out of the person who egged you on, and you know it. It's exactly what you would have told Violet to do, too."

Dally wanted to say that it made a difference when the one getting beat up was Violet. She'd been through enough beating up in her life, and every time he tried to protect her … every time he tried to teach her to fight … he failed. Violet's bleeding lip and broken ribs were a long time coming, and he couldn't stand to look at them. The more he looked at her like that, the more he remembered being ten years old and hopping a Greyhound he didn't even know how to hop.

"My sister can't move!" he yelled. "She don't know how to take care of herself. She thinks she do, but she don't. She never fuckin' told me she … And I wasn't …"

Lucy took a deep breath. Suddenly, she understood why Dally was so upset, but she also understood that he was never going to own up to it. For his sake, she'd have to sit there and endure it until he was ready to come around. Perhaps it wasn't the boldest choice, but she was nineteen, she'd never loved anyone before him, and it felt like the only choice.

"You ain't gotta be a bitch about it," he said. "Half an hour ago, you were sick to death about her, an' now, it's like she don't even exist. It's like she ain't even my …"

His voice trailed off again. Why was the word _sister _getting more and more difficult to use?

"You ain't gotta stop feelin' bad for V just 'cause you an' your bitch friends think it's fun to beat up on her," Dally said. There. That was it. That was the kill, and he'd gone it for it, all right.

Lucy didn't say anything. It wasn't worth it. She knew he wasn't talking to her – not precisely. She merely blinked, thinking that if she blinked enough or in the right pattern, Dally would recognize her. He was still in a fog … still seeing red in the midst of all the violet. She was going to call him back to her, but she wasn't quick enough.

Soda ran back out into the living room from the kitchen. He was carrying one of those ice packs, initially for Jane, but as he slammed Dally against the front door, he used the ice on him. Dally didn't flinch. He was still stuck on the kitchen floor.

"Get the hell out of my house," Soda said. "If you're gonna talk like that, you're gonna get the hell out of my house. I don't care if you beat the shit out of me. You're gonna get the hell out of my house."

Lucy tried to stand up to defend her husband – to tell Soda that he wasn't really in the moment – but Soda's words quickly forced back into her seat.

"You don't talk to my sister that way."

At the time, Sodapop hadn't actually heard what he said. It felt as natural as talking about Sadie.

Finally, Lucy stood up and put her hand on Soda's shoulder, pulling him away so that she could get to Dally.

"Take that ice over to Jane," Lucy said, surprised by the calmness in her voice. "She needs it more over there than we do over here."

Soda stepped away from Dally and looked at Lucy, confused as to why she didn't seem more upset. He knew Lucy, and she never tolerated the word _bitch_. Why would she let her own husband get away with using that word, let alone use it against her?

"Are you sure you're OK?" he asked.

"No," Lucy said. "But I do know I can take it from here."

She looked at Dally, who was beginning to frown. He must have been standing up and making his way for the door in that moment. Lucy held her breath and waited for him to come to. He usually came to once he remembered how he stumbled past Violet and went for the door.

"Hey, Bennet?" he asked.

"We're leaving," she said. Before she could head out the door, she turned to Jane. She wasn't sure what to say – she didn't know how she could manage to sympathize with both Jane and Violet – so she just nodded at her and said, "Take care of yourself, Jane."

Jane shot Lucy a sad smile, and out the door she went.

* * *

They let Violet stay the night. She'd managed to take care of her own injuries and insisted she'd be better, though not pretty, by the morning. She took the bed, and Lucy and Dally took the shop downstairs. In the haze of the moon outside and the one dimming light bulb swinging from a rope in the middle of the shop, they fought.

Of course, they weren't really fighting. Lucy was insisting that he start to talk more about that night in the kitchen when he was ten years old, considering the flashbacks were getting longer, more intense, and more frequent recently. Dally was insisting right back that he didn't need to talk about it. Talking about it, he was sure, would only make it worse.

"Dally," Lucy said. "If you're really gonna stick around … if you're really gonna try to be a father …"

"Then what? I'm gonna have to think about my old man?"

"Of course. We've talked about projection before. I know you remember."

He frowned. Of course he remembered. He remembered everything Bennet ever said to him, both because he almost loved the sound of her voice and because he almost thought everything she had to say was real fascinating. It would have been easier not to remember. It would have been easier not to remember anything. He thought of Violet, sleeping in his bed upstairs, and envied her ability to repress.

"You think I'm gonna treat my kid the way my old man treated me? 'S that what you think, Bennet?"

"No, not exactly."

"Then what is it?"

Lucy took a deep breath. She hated being honest with him. It wasn't that she feared what he would say or do in the face of her honesty. No matter what he did or said, she still wasn't afraid of Dallas Winston. She was afraid of feeling vulnerable. She didn't like to be soft because once you were soft in front of somebody, there was no recovery. They'd always know you as the girl who went soft and, therefore, could get weak – could get hurt. She looked right at Dally and said what she needed to. For as much as she hated to be vulnerable, she really hated to be chicken.

"I don't want you to ignore my baby because you're afraid of turning into your father," Lucy said. "I know you wouldn't … I know you wouldn't hurt it."

"How do you know that? Huh?"

She knew it because of the way he'd jump to defend Violet and Johnny, or even Pony and Lilly if they really needed it. She knew it because of how gentle his kisses on her lips had become since they learned that she was pregnant. She knew it because she knew _him_. She knew him better than anyone ever had; though at times, she worried she was only well acquainted with half of him. But she didn't give any of those answers. They were saccharine, and Dally didn't do saccharine.

"You gotta wake up and figure it out for yourself," Lucy said.

"Figure what out?"

"That you're not a bad guy, but you're not a good guy, either. You're really not much of a guy."

"Well, I know I ain't a broad."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean you're not a _guy_. You're a _man_."

They stopped. Dally thought back to a conversation he'd had with Lucy in the spring, when she said that the world wasn't made up of good guys and bad guys – just guys and maybe a few men. He never quite figured out what she meant by that, but he never assumed he was one of the men. Never once.

"Don't ask me what makes a man," Lucy said. "I don't know if I can put it into words."

"You could put fuckin' classical music into words."

"That's different. People use words to describe classical music all the time. I don't think there's any one way to describe, you know, being a man. I just know you're one of them. Only …"

Her voice trailed off. It didn't matter how long she'd been married to him or that he'd never done anything to hurt her – not really. Being vulnerable was still damn near impossible. She'd spent her whole life building walls around her. She couldn't be expecting to tear them all down overnight. It was a miracle that Sadie Curtis had found her way over one of those walls. It was an even bigger miracle that Dallas Winston was scaling another one.

"What?" Dally asked.

Lucy didn't overthink it. She just spat it all out … everything she had been thinking and feeling since the first night they spent together over a year earlier.

"Only a man kisses his wife after she's been hurling her guts out," she said. "Only a man takes the fall and goes to jail for his buddy and his kid sister. Only a man sticks around to try to raise a baby he's not ready for."

Dally almost winced at the sound of that one. For a moment or two, he'd managed to forget that Lucy was about four months out from pushing out a baby that was half Winston. He'd managed to forget that he would, inevitably, be a terrible father, even if he did stick around. After the way he'd yelled at Violet for not defending herself well enough in the fight with Jane, when even he knew that wasn't how you were supposed to play it, he knew he wasn't capable of looking after something as small as a baby. What example did he have to follow, anyway?

"Only a man leaves his wife's book open to a very specific page the morning after she tells him she loves him," Lucy said, careful not to make eye contact.

For the first time in, perhaps, his entire laugh, Dally could feel himself start to get embarrassed. It had been months since that night he came home drunk and that early morning he rifled through that book, trying to find the quote that Dr. Bennet had told him about back when they were still living with Lucy's folks. He figured she'd never bring it up – not after it had been this long. Part of him wanted to run out of the shop and never come back. Part of him was thrilled she was finally saying something. At the time, he wasn't sure which part of him was bigger and louder.

"Yeah," she said. "I saw that."

"It was kinda the point," Dally said. "Left it there for you to find. Thought I was bein' clever."

"You were being clever. I'm just clever, too."

"No shit."

"I'm still not gonna make you say it."

"I'm still not gonna say it."

"But … I know you mean it."

He exhaled loudly, not quite annoyed with Lucy but not quite happy with her, either. Wasn't it enough for him to know, privately, that he loved her? If he said something, she'd have expectations. Worse, they'd be expectations he could never meet. Yes, he knew he loved her. Maybe he'd always known. But if she was expecting him to show her that he loved her the way that Sodapop Curtis showed Jane Randle that he loved her, she would have to dream on.

"Yeah," Lucy said. "We've been over this."

They were quiet for both what felt like and what was a very long time. After a while, Lucy stepped closer to Dally. She didn't try to touch him, as she knew he wasn't ready for that. But, she thought, there was no harm in trying. There was no harm in trying to teach him to get used to it.

"'M sorry I said that, by the way," Dally said.

Lucy raised her eyebrows. How could he…?

Off her look, Dally shook his head once and corrected himself.

"Not _that_. I never even said that. I mean I'm sorry I called you a bitch. You ain't."

"I know what I am," Lucy said. "And you didn't call me a bitch. You told me I didn't have to act like a bitch. It's different."

"Whadda they call that? What you just did?"

"What did I do?"

"Picked apart the words. Made 'em say what you wanted to say."

"Semantics."

"Fuck it. You said it before. I ain't ever gonna remember."

Lucy almost smiled. She knew he hadn't been talking to her back at the Curtis place – not really. Admittedly, she was still afraid he was never going to learn how to move on. She was still afraid he was never going to learn how _not _to project his parents onto her and onto their kid. Maybe he'd work things out (as much as a guy like Dally could work things out). That would be all right. Maybe he'd get fed up trying to work things out and leave them without a word. That would be all right, too (eventually). Anything was better than the image of finding her own kid on the kitchen floor.

But if she wasn't being impartial (and she didn't want to be impartial – not when it was Dally, not when it was her baby), she knew she wanted him figure it out while he stayed. She didn't even think he was incapable. Unlike everybody in the world before her, Lucy Bennet saw Dallas Winston for the mess he was and, without question, knew he was smart enough to figure himself out. She'd be there to help him if he asked, but he could figure it out on his own.

"Either way," he said. "I'm sorry, Bennet. I wasn't … I wasn't talkin' to you. I was lookin' at you, but …"

"I know," Lucy said. "I'm not happy about it, and I don't blame Soda for sicking himself on you like that."

Dally looked down at the ground. He wasn't sure why, but he had anticipated that Lucy wouldn't bring up what happened with Soda. Why had he let the kid pin him to the wall like that? He could have sent him through the plaster if he'd been trying, but he just stood there and let himself get pummeled – by _Sodapop Curtis_. He knew the kid could play tough every now and then, but never with him. Why did he keep letting Soda get the best of him? Why, out of all the guys he knew, was he letting _Soda _push him around?

He put a stop to those thoughts. Perhaps he'd have them on another day, though he doubted it.

"You shouldn't have said what you said," Lucy continued. "Doesn't _really _matter how you said it. And if you talk to me like that again, for real, I'm not going to be half as graceful about it as I am now."

Dally just stood there, wondering how in the world he was processing Bennet's words like they were a real threat. Somewhere in the back of his mind (and not too far back), he knew that she really meant it. And he couldn't deal with the thought of Lucy packing up and leaving him. He couldn't deal with the thought of losing her because he loved her. He knew it now. Hell, he'd always known it.

"I know," he said. "Y'always mean business."

"But you gotta stop trying to forget you've been through the ringer. You gotta figure out why you blame yourself for Violet going through the ringer. I want you around as long as you want to be around. But I don't want it to be bullshit. You understand?"

Dally didn't say anything. He understood, but he wasn't sure he was in the position to make a promise. He'd never quite done that before, and he didn't think he knew how. Then again, a year ago, he'd vowed to stand by Lucy Bennet in sickness and in health, and he'd done that. Hadn't he?

"Well," Lucy said. "Happy birthday, I guess."

And because Dally didn't know what else to do, he laughed. When you're exhausted, hysterical, and trying to come to terms with the night you let your eight-year-old sister down, sometimes, laughing is all you can manage.

* * *

**UGH, none of that was easy. It was one of those, "Eh, the recipe doesn't **_**call **_**for cinnamon, but I guess I'll throw some in, anyway" kind of chapters. Chapter eleven will be better (and more genuinely eventful/more in character). Hoping to have it posted by April 24 for **_**reasons**_**.**

**I'm beginning the plans for the next multi-chap fic in the 'A&A' universe. It's a tonal departure, largely, but my style won't shift too dramatically. I'm not revealing the title, but I'll drop it in the future of this particular story.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. Sadie's joke about naming the baby "Stradlater" is a reference to **_**The Catcher in the Rye**_**, which (as revealed in "I'll Be Your Mirror") is the first book Lucy and Sadie bond over. I don't own that book, but it **_**was **_**the first book I ever received as a Christmas gift when I was ten months old. I also allude to Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "The Land of Counterpane," which … occasionally, I'm amazed that the same guy who wrote this poem also wrote **_**The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde**_**. That, of course, is in the public domain.**


	11. Chapter 11

On April 24, 1967, Lucy Bennet turned her last final exam of her first year in college. She was shocked she managed to sit through a three-hour exam when she was nine months pregnant, but it was an exam in literary theory, the part of literature she recently found out she liked best. She refused to miss it, even if her professor had been willing to grant her an exemption.

"I won't do that, Dad," Lucy said a few nights before the exam. "People are mad enough already that the administration let your own daughter take your class. If they found out you were going to exempt your daughter on account of her being ready to give birth, they'd riot."

"Don't joke about riots," Dr. Bennet said. "And don't be a martyr."

"I'm not being a martyr. I'm saving your ass."

"You're right. You're not being a martyr. A martyr isn't that selfish."

Lucy rolled her eyes. If she hadn't been so heavily pregnant, she probably would have quipped back. For past month, she'd been too exhausted to do very much. She was just tired of being pregnant and wanted the thing out of her already. It wasn't that she was particularly anxious to start raising it (She _was _anxious, but anxious like terrified). It was that she couldn't stand to lug around her body _and _another body inside of it for much longer.

At least Dally had been a little help – more help than any of the others could have predicted eight months earlier. He cleaned up around the apartment when Lucy felt like she couldn't move. He was still working; still giving every penny he earned right to his wife. He wasn't particularly itching to be a father, but he hadn't even looked toward the door since the night they patched up Violet.

In fact, he'd been spending quite a bit of time with Violet since that night she and Jane Randle got into it. The old man was nowhere to be found, so it didn't matter whether or not Dally hung around the old house. At first, he didn't want to go anywhere near it, but Lucy told him it was probably good for him to really see and spend some time in that kitchen. When he did, he felt like he could be sick, and Violet noticed. She asked him what the fuck was wrong with him, and though he almost told her the truth, he figured it was better to keep it from her. If she didn't remember that night, it was a blessing. She was better off not knowing that when she was eight years old, her brother found out that their old man's friends were beating up on her, and her old man nearly killed her brother for saying something. Violet was already messed up enough. He didn't need to add to it. Later, he told Lucy about his decision to keep quiet, and she told him it was the right call to make. He never would have said anything to Lucy, of course, but he was almost happy she approved.

He wasn't working past that night yet, but he was working to accept the fact that it had happened. Most importantly, he was coming around to the notion that he hadn't failed to defend Violet. Tough and angry as he already was, he was only ten years old. There was nothing much more he could have done. He was ten years old, only about five feet tall, and he hadn't learned to pummel a guy yet. In New York, he learned how to pummel plenty of guys (He could do far worse than just pummel 'em by the time he was fourteen.), but he didn't think he could ever really confront the old man again. One night, he asked Lucy if she thought that was a chickenshit thing to think. She shook her head.

"There's a fine line between chickenshit and smart," she said. "Closer I get to having this baby, clearer it seems to me."

He didn't quite understand what Lucy was talking about, but maybe one day he would. In truth, he gave a few damns about working through his memories of that night. If he didn't, then Lucy would probably kick him out, and that was worse than leaving of his own accord. Not only would it mean he lost, but also, it would mean begging for his room at Buck's back, having to deal with Buck haranguing him about marrying broads who thought they were tough enough to punch him, and listening to country music every night. That was another good thing about living with Lucy. She was always listening to Motown (in honor of the place she liked to call home, though she wasn't from there at all). Motown stood for something. Hank Williams stood for less.

But on April 24, 1967, Dally was down at the Slash J while Lucy was sitting with Sadie in the Curtis family living room. In truth, Sadie was sitting, and Lucy was pacing up and down the floor, trying to shake the baby out. According to her doctor, she wasn't due for another two days (maybe even three). That didn't change her desperation to just _not be pregnant _anymore. She didn't care that once she stopped being pregnant, she had to start being a mother. It was too much to lug around all that extra weight without being able to take a break. The sooner it was over, the better.

"Who's allowed in the room with you when you have the baby?" Sadie asked. "I was awful little when Pony was born. I don't remember anything, 'cept how Soda cried for a day and a half 'cause he wanted another sister."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. We've never told Pony about it. Figure he'd get pissy. But I remember. He wanted another sister, and he wanted to call her, 'Sadie Two.'"

"That's adorable. I almost feel sorry he never got one."

"No. He did."

Lucy stopped her pacing just to smile at Sadie. A few days after Soda slipped up and referred to Lucy as his sister while yelling at Dally, he realized what he'd said. The strange part was that he apologized to Lucy for it, worried it had made her uncomfortable, somehow. She just laughed and said she was glad he said it.

"One thing's for sure," Lucy said. "Whatever comes out of me in the next few days is going to be an only child. I don't think I can do this pregnant thing again."

"Is it really as bad as it looks?" Sadie asked. "I don't really remember when Mom was pregnant. I remember when I turned fourteen, and she was real worried I was gonna start sneakin' out with boys, she told me that there was nothing worse than being pregnant in the summer. Said she stuck to any surface she sat on."

"I was brand new pregnant in the summer, so it still almost felt like my body back then. But look at me. I'm five-foot-three, I hate the way my body looks when there _isn't_ a baby sticking out of it, and I don't think I have it in me to look after two babies at once."

"Hmm. Guess we should be glad twins don't run in _your _family, then."

"Your poor mother."

"No kiddin'."

Lucy started to walk faster and faster, which probably would have scared Sadie if she didn't know her so well. That was the thing about Lucy. She was always so desperate and extreme about everything. If she wanted to make that baby come out within the next five to ten minutes, she could. It was a little scary how well she could bend things to her will, but that was probably why she was the only person in the world who could have been married to Dally.

"It's amazing I can only walk this fast," Lucy said. "You know I can usually get from one end of this room to the next in about five seconds. I'm lucky if it takes me a minute both ways these days."

"So, let me get this straight. You'd rather be in the worst pain of your whole life than limp around with a baby inside you?"

"Yeah. Giving birth is a matter of hours."

"Sometimes days."

"Days are still shorter than nine months."

"You can break anything up into hours. Isn't nine months just a number of hours, too?"

"Don't argue semantics with me, Sadie. I can argue semantics, but you cannot argue them back. These are the rules."

"Created by _whom_?"

"Meem."

"Meem?"

"Yeah. I always thought we needed a different answer for _whom _when the answer is _me_."

"That's it. You ain't allowed to have doubts anymore. On that observation alone, you're gonna be a great mom."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at Sadie, and Sadie just laughed and laughed. If she were feeling up to a real conversation, she would have told Sadie that for as much as she wanted to get this baby out of her, she wasn't exactly thrilled to have to take it home and raise it. And it wasn't that she wasn't looking forward to meeting the baby, naming it, and being its mother. She was just afraid of how everything was going to change once there was a real baby in the mix. In that moment, it didn't matter to her whether Dally stayed or left them. The only thing that mattered was whether or not she could be a decent mother and a decent student at the same time. Dally kept saying that was why he wasn't going anywhere. He knew Lucy's schooling was just as important to her as any baby would be. She wasn't going to give that up. He wasn't going to let her. Part of Lucy believed him. Part of her knew it was probably a bad idea to believe Dallas Winston about anything.

Then again, he was asking her about what she wanted to name the baby more and more often, so perhaps he was more interested in being a father than Lucy initially thought.

"At this point, I don't even care about the kind of mother I'll be," Lucy tried to joke, even though she cared very deeply about the kind of mother she would turn out to be. "I'm sick of feeling like I've got a basketball and a half stuck under my shirt."

As soon as the sentence came out of her mouth, Lucy felt a prickling of something wet running down her thigh. Her heart stopped. For all the complaining she was doing seconds earlier, she suddenly would have done anything to force the baby back up inside of her. She wasn't ready to meet it yet. Darry wasn't even done building the crib he'd promised her. Where was it supposed to sleep? What was Lucy supposed to do now?

"Hmm," she mused so quietly that Sadie couldn't hear her. "How … narratively convenient."

"Lucy?"

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The doctor said only 10% of women's water actually break before they go into labor with contractions."

Sadie, who was pink with her own set of nerves, stood up and tried to help Lucy. Lucy wasn't having it. She batted Sadie's arms away and cradled her belly instead. She looked down at it and talked to it.

"What did I tell you?" she said. "You're your father's child. Only someone related to him would wanna come into the world breaking something."

"What happens now? Do I take you to a hospital?"

"Unless you want me to give birth unsupervised on your family's carpet here. Imagine how pissed Darry would be if he walked in, and the carpet was covered in blood and baby stuff."

"Do you have to make this sound so gross?"

"It _is _gross. Just count your blessings you don't have to see it. Nobody's allowed in the delivery room except for me. I can't even have my mom in there. Doctor says there are rules."

"What about Dally?"

"Men aren't allowed in the delivery room. Are you crazy?"

"No, I mean, what about … Pony!"

Lucy frowned, both because she was confused and because she was pretty sure she was about to know what contractions felt like.

"Pony's been here the whole time, and you're only just now saying something?"

"Well, yeah," Sadie said. "I didn't think it mattered. Pony!"

A few seconds later, Ponyboy came stumbling out of his bedroom, dropping his book on the carpet when he saw that Lucy was clearly going into labor. She was going into labor at _his _house, and he could picture it now. Darry would surely ask him to be the one to clean up all the blood and the baby stuff. He bit down on both of his lips to keep from hurling right then and there.

"Lucy's having the baby right now," Sadie said. "Darry must've sensed somethin', considerin' he got a ride to work and left us the car. I'm gonna take her to the hospital."

"What do ya need me for, then?" Ponyboy asked.

"I need you to go find Dally."

"No!" Lucy objected. She didn't know why, but it felt wrong to bother him for something like this, even if it was the birth of his child. They never talked about it, so Lucy took that to mean that he didn't want to be anywhere near the hospital when it happened. Sadie, however, knew that everyone would regret it if Dally missed the minute his baby was born, so she shook her head at Lucy and kept planning with Ponyboy.

"Lucy says he's down at the Slash J. Go find him and bring him to the hospital."

"Are you sure he wants to be there? You know he's Dally, don't ya?"

"I'm sure he wants to be there."

As Lucy gritted her teeth in pain and rubbed her belly as though it would make the pain stop, she wanted to object. Sadie had no way of knowing that Dally wanted to be there when Lucy had the baby. Maybe if he were there, he'd have more of a reason to eventually leave. It didn't make sense, but it felt possible.

"Fine," Ponyboy said, almost put out to be helping. "I'll find him."

"Ponyboy."

"_What_, Sadie?"

"You're gonna go straight to the Slash J and tell Dally what's goin' on with Lucy and the baby. You ain't gonna stop and grab Johnny on the way, wherever he is. You ain't gonna get lost while you imagine what it'd be like if _you _grabbed Excalibur out of the stone."

"It would be real tuff."

"Obviously. But you ain't gonna think about it. You ain't gonna think about anything 'cept for gettin' Dally to the hospital for Lucy. You dig?"

"I dig."

"Good. We'll see you soon. Come on, Lucy."

She grabbed Lucy's hand and helped her out the door. As Lucy awkwardly piled into the front seat of the Curtis family car, she couldn't help but fear that the baby would come too fast, and Dally wouldn't make it in time to hear it be born from the lobby. Of course, it only mattered to her. If he missed the birth itself, it gave him an easier reason to leave without much guilt. He could never bond with a kid he never heard cry out for the first time. He could never bond with a kid he never met.

Lucy winced again as Sadie inadvertently drove over a speed bump. When she cried out in pain, she blamed it on her body alone, but that wasn't it. She couldn't bear the thought of Dally not showing up while she was pushing the kid out, it seemed. She hoped to God that Ponyboy would get there in time. She hoped to God that Dally would follow him back to the hospital. She hoped to God that her baby would know its father. For an inexplicable reason, it seemed like the rest of their lives hinged on what would happen that day and into that night.

* * *

When Ponyboy told Dally that Lucy was in labor, Dally was all too quick to follow him to the hospital. At the time, he wasn't really thinking about what was going to happen once Lucy pushed the baby out. All he heard was _Lucy _and _hospital _and _now_, and it was enough to get him moving. He didn't think. He just moved. It was a strange thing. For over a year, he thought if he stopped thinking, then he'd stop carrying around this heavy piece of his heart for Lucy Bennet. Yet, the minute he stopped thinking about her was the minute she became part of his instinct. Even he had to laugh a little at the irony.

He wasn't alone in the hospital lobby while Lucy was having the baby. She was alone (which he still thought was shitty), but he wasn't. Dr. and Mrs. Bennet were sitting across from him, whispering anxiously to each other about how they could help after the baby was born. Dr. Bennet said he could watch the baby during Lucy's Tuesday and Thursday classes once she went back to school in the fall. Mrs. Bennet said something about being glad Lucy was married for months before she got pregnant because that way, they didn't have to send her away. That way, Mrs. Bennet could tell her friends that she was going to be a grandmother. Dally rolled his eyes, and Dr. Bennet caught him. He didn't say anything. It was in that moment Dally realized he had always kind of liked Dr. Bennet. The guy knew how to play.

Sadie, Soda, and Ponyboy were in and out. Ponyboy was uneasy in hospitals, and when he started to get lightheaded, the twins took him outside to get some air. Every fifteen minutes or so, they'd come back in, and Ponyboy would worry that he'd miss the baby being born. Every ten minutes after that, the siblings were outside again, helping the kid catch his breath. It was almost amusing. Soda took better care of his mostly competent fifteen-year-old brother than Dally could ever manage to take care of his own newborn baby, he assumed.

Mrs. Bennet said that Lucy was having a really quick labor. She'd been in labor for about six hours and wasn't too far away from pushing, according to the doctor. Dally was more darkly amused by that one. Of course Lucy's labor was a quick one. It gave him less time to sit there and think about his next move.

Before he knew it, he heard one very loud word escape from somewhere in the back.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

Mrs. Bennet looked like she swallowed a raw potato. Dr. Bennet bit his lip to keep from laughing. He looked at his son-in-law and said, "Looks like Lucy's almost done in there."

As Mrs. Bennet muttered something about wishing her daughter could conjure up some decorum in the delivery room, Dally listened to Lucy continue to scream. Something pulsed through him … some strange kind of need to run in there and help her. He hated that she was in there yelling in pain, and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. It reminded him too much of … he shut off those thoughts and listened for Lucy.

He wasn't sure how much time passed in between his last memory and the sound of a high-pitched cry. His skin turned hot and cold at the same time. The cry made it real. That thing they spent nearly a year worrying about was a real person now. His mind was so crowded with all these stupid _thoughts _that it may as well have been blank. Then, he heard the doctor.

"It's a girl!"

A girl.

So, he had a daughter. In a bizarre way, that was exactly what he'd been expecting. Maybe it was the pink onesie Jane had bought for the kid that day she and Violet got into it. Maybe it was Lucy's undying need to make everything about women's rights. Maybe it was just a secret hope that the kid would look like Lucy because Lucy was beautiful. But he'd never pictured having a son. From the minute they found out Lucy was knocked up, he knew it had to be a girl. It felt fitting, but he didn't know why … until, of course, he did.

Shortly after the doctor shouted, "It's a girl!" Dally thought back to what was almost undoubtedly his first memory. He was two years old, sitting on the floor in the house where he'd started to grow up, and the door opened. His mother walked through it, dazed and ignoring him. His old man walked in a few seconds later, carrying something in a blanket. He showed the thing in the blanket off to Dally. A baby. A girl.

"This is Violet, I guess," the old man said.

Violet had been a baby girl. Dally supposed he'd always known that, but it never really _happened _upon him like it did in that moment – in the moment he found out he had a daughter in the back of the hospital. He sat there and pieced it all together, not caring that it hurt to think. He welcomed the pain. It was better than being numb after all. Violet had been a baby girl. This baby in the back of the hospital was a baby girl. They both had him in common, and he'd failed to look after one. What made him think he could look after another? When he was a kid, there was no one he loved or liked better than Violet. She was the tuffest kid he'd ever met. He remembered when she was six years old and scared the piss out of some kids at Crutchfield Park so that they'd give up their unopened Cokes to her and her brother. She was real cool – cooler than he ever was, though he'd never own up to that. It would give her too big of a head. If any kid ever needed a hand out of where she was, it was Violet. And he hadn't offered it. He could have grabbed her on his way out the door … could have helped her hop that Greyhound to New York just as well as he hopped it by himself. But he wasn't thinking. He was so busy trying to save his own skin that he forgot about hers. What made him think he wouldn't do the same thing to his own kid?

He wasn't even fully cognizant of the fact that he was getting up out of his chair and walking down the stairs, out of the hospital, to be gone for good. And it really would be _for good_. Lucy wouldn't miss him, and that kid would never even know him. Good. She didn't need to know him. He wasn't worth knowing. Lucy knew it, too. He looked around to make sure Dr. and Mrs. Bennet couldn't see him. He didn't want them telling Lucy he'd run off. She'd figure it out on her own, of course, but he didn't want them to know before she did. After all, he did love her. Because he loved her, he thought it was better to leave her. It was better to leave her now and cause a little bit of pain in the moment than it was to slug out a marriage and a baby with her, disappointing her, throwing her into a life of pain that she never asked for.

* * *

Dally was outside and on his way to the apartment to grab his things when he heard someone run up from behind him, trying to catch up to him. He stopped. He didn't need to turn around. He knew who it was.

"Hey, Dally."

Dally rolled his eyes and then shut them tightly. He didn't know what he'd done to make this happen (and he really didn't know why he was allowing it to), but he turned around to face what Lucy would have called "the music."

"Why're you always followin' me?"

"I ain't," Soda said. "Just happen to be goin' a lot of the same places. Though I'm not really sure where you're headed right now."

Dally clenched his fists at his sides. He hated it when Soda pulled shit like this. He wondered if the kid knew he was smarter than he thought he was.

"Lucy had the baby," he said. "Just a minute ago. It's a girl."

Soda's smile was earnest, which part of him regretted. He wanted to stay tough, even though somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he wasn't the one scaring Dally into doing the right thing. He was just the mouthpiece.

"And you're headed toward home to grab her somethin', ain't ya?"

Dally didn't say anything, but he didn't start to walk away, either. Why wasn't he walking away? He told himself he wasn't going to let anyone see him … wasn't going to let anyone stop him. Why was Sodapop Curtis everywhere he tried to be?

Soda shook his head, finally letting his expression go from forced tough to crestfallen. Perhaps the strong-arm attempt wasn't the best to take with Dally. He knew from Sadie that Dally had been trying to deal with a lot shit since that night Violet and Jane got into it. When it came to family, even Dally knew you couldn't just be rough. You had to be more.

"Oh, Dally, don't," Soda begged, almost as though he hadn't seen this coming (which, of course, he had, and was exponentially prepared to handle). "Not after you stayed married to her for all that time. Not after you stayed with her the whole time she was pregnant."

"What else am I supposed to do, man? Stay?"

"I think that's what Lucy expects, yeah."

"Lucy expects a lot of things. She ain't gonna get 'em all."

"You told her you weren't goin' anywhere. You wanna lie to her?"

"I lie all the time. I just like to lie."

"That ain't even true."

"Ain't you just provin' my point, then?"

Soda stuffed his hands into his pockets. He had a lot of things in mind for what he could say next. He just wasn't sure which one to go with. Fortunately, he didn't have to choose because Dally couldn't stop talking.

"It's one thing for Lucy to have been knocked up," he said. "It's another thing for there to be a real baby. That's not fuckin' easy. You think I don't know that?"

"You're right. It ain't easy. And if you leave now, it's just gonna be harder for Lucy to do it on her own."

"She's smart. She'll figure it out."

"She knows how to read books and write good papers. She don't know anything about raising a baby. She needs your help."

"I don't know _how _to help. She'll be better off on her own."

"And me an' Darry and Pony, we were better off on our own after our folks died? You were better off on your own? Violet was better off on her own?"

Dally's hands clenched into fists again. You didn't just throw Violet's name out like that. Soda should have known better. He knew about what happened when Two-Bit tried to hit on her. Dally didn't take anything lightly, but he _especially _didn't take Violet lightly … and he didn't take Lucy lightly, either.

"If I stick around, it'll just be the same thing. Left V on her own. She ain't OK. This kid's better off without me."

"Don't you see how backward you're bein'? You feel all guilty 'cause you think you should've been _there _for Violet. The only way you can fuck up here is if you leave again."

Without recognizing it, Dally was moving closer to the hospital again. He thought about it, even though it still hurt to think. Everyday now, he thought back to the truth that he spent a lot of time in jail to avoid Violet – to avoid dealing with the embarrassment that he'd left her behind. She wasn't better off without him, nor was he better off without her. And he wouldn't have learned any of that if Lucy hadn't cared enough to make him start seeing all the things he spent his whole life trying to shove down and forget. Maybe Lucy wasn't the first or the only person who had ever cared about him. He was starting to know that now. She was, however, the first person to call him on his shit. And he kind of liked that. He liked it enough to want to go back into the hospital and see her. After all, he'd rather get called on his shit by his hot wife than by Sodapop Curtis.

Soda noticed that the look in Dally's eyes was changing. He tried not to smile for fear that it would send Dally packing all over again.

"Whaddya say, man?" he asked. "You wanna go back in there? Meet your daughter?"

_His daughter_. It was a terrifying phrase, but if he thought too much about it, he wasn't going to go inside. For the first time since he married Lucy, it was better to move than it was to think. He looked at Soda one more time.

"Well, you ain't meetin' the kid before I do," he said.

And he walked past the kid like he'd never planned on going anywhere.

Soda watched Dally walk away and finally let a smile grow across his face, still careful to make sure that Dally couldn't see. He knew he wasn't the one who forced him back inside. Dally only did what he wanted to do. It only gave him great joy to know that Dally wanted to go back inside. It only gave him great joy to know that Dally wanted to meet his daughter.

* * *

Lucy looked terrible. There was no way to dress it up. Talking about "the glory of motherhood" would have been bullshit. She just looked terrible – tired, sweaty, and terrible. Dally had seen her look like she was going to slice somebody open plenty of times, but nothing like this. She looked so terrible that it was the first thing Dally said to her when he saw her lying in that hospital bed.

"How romantic of you," Lucy said. Her eyes floated down to the tiny bundle of blanket on her chest, and his eyes followed. He couldn't see the kid's face, but she was there. She was there, and he didn't feel like he had to bolt. He was frozen. Why was he frozen? Later, he would realize that he was frozen because he needed to be.

"I'm glad you decided to come back," Lucy said.

"How'd you know…?"

"I know everything. It's why you stayed. My know-it-all-ness has grown on you. You finally respect its power. Right?"

He rolled his eyes, but for the first time in his life, it was more spirited than venomous. He looked back at the bundle of blanket – baby – attached to Lucy's chest. She noticed his eyes on the baby and looked right at him.

"You wanna see her?"

"'S why I came back, ain't it?"

"C'mere."

Dally stepped closer to the bed, and Lucy turned the baby away from her chest so that Dally could see her face. He wasn't looking anymore. The thought of that first eye contact was too much … until Lucy called him back down to reality.

"You said you wanted to see her," Lucy said.

"I didn't say _that_."

"Don't argue semantics with me."

He smiled. He remembered what _semantics _were after all.

"Do you know how to hold her?" Lucy asked.

"Think I can figure it out."

He bent forward a little bit as Lucy handed him the baby. The baby let out a small cry as she left her mother's arms, but she seemed to know she was being handed over to her father. It took a few seconds, but Dally finally looked down at her. The second he saw her face he hated his parents more than ever before. If he really did come from them, and they picked him up in the same way that he had just picked up his daughter, they must have been the worst people who ever lived. How could they not have felt what he did the first time he held his baby?

It was not overwhelming. It was not love – not immediately, anyway, and not like Lucy would describe the first time she held the baby to everyone who came through the hospital room that day. But when Dally first saw his daughter, he couldn't help but feel some type of fondness toward her. He looked at her face – scrunched up and pink, looking more like an alien than a person. He looked at her face, and although she didn't particularly look like him or Lucy or any person who had ever existed, he instinctively knew that she was his. They had an understanding from the minute the baby learned to open her eyes. It was kind of cool. It was enough to convince Dally that one night more with Lucy and the baby couldn't hurt.

"What's her name?" he asked.

"What?"

"Her name. Ya never told me when I asked."

Lucy sighed. She'd never told anyone the name – not even her father, and he had pestered her the entire time he was in the room. She insisted that Dally would come into the room eventually, and it seemed wrong not to tell the father first.

"Elinor," Lucy said. "Like Elinor Dashwood from _Sense and Sensibility_. She's my favorite Austen character, and …"

She motioned toward the baby in Dally's arms.

"She's my favorite girl," Lucy said. "Just don't tell Sadie, OK?"

"I think Sadie's gonna figure it out one of these days."

"You'd be surprised."

He kept looking down at the kid, trying to figure out how she might grow to look like him or like Lucy. It almost cracked him up that she was quiet and scowling the whole time he held her. She must have picked that up from him, somehow. Her nose looked a little like Lucy's the longer he stared at it – small and slender and cute. _Cute_. It wasn't the kind of word he liked to go around thinking about, but it was the only word that applied. The longer he held his daughter, the cooler she became. Mostly, that was because she was a part of him, and he was impressed with himself for making a person (with Lucy, as she would repeatedly point out later on). Still, that wasn't all. There was something strange and unidentifiable drawing him to her and convincing him not to take off running.

A little while later, a nurse came in and asked Lucy if she was ready to fill out the birth certificate. She looked at Dally, who still hadn't given the baby back to her, then back at the nurse.

"We haven't talked about her last name yet," she said.

Dally felt his heart rate spike, which surprised the hell out of him. He never figured he'd live to have a baby, and he really never figured it would matter to him that his baby shared his last name. Nonetheless, with the baby in his arms, he knew this was (for some reason) where he was at.

"What d'you mean?" he asked. "Ya give the kid her daddy's last name. I'm her daddy."

"You tried to leave us not one hour ago."

"That was before I met the kid. Things have changed, Bennet. Keep up."

"Mmm-hmm. You rip your genitals in half and see if you can keep up."

"Considerin' my own plumbin', I think, in that case, keepin' up would be pretty impossible."

"I just need somebody to fill out the birth certificate," the nurse awkwardly jumped in.

Dally looked at Lucy, willing her to let him write _Winston _on the kid's birth certificate. It wasn't like he wanted the kid to share the same name as his old man. He didn't have that weird "family line" thing that the Curtis kids had. Then again, just because he'd been born didn't mean he had a family line (until now, which he only thought in the back of his mind). Lucy rolled her eyes, relenting, and Dally turned back to the nurse to ask where he had to sign.

"Make sure her middle name is Bennet," Lucy said. "I want her to get used to hearing her name followed by Bennet."

Dally grumbled a half-hearted reply. Before he could write the baby's name down on the birth certificate, Lucy piped up with another one of her worries.

"Dally, are you sure you know how to spell her first name? You've never even opened a copy of _Sense and Sensibility_, and it's spelled differently than you usually see it."

"I know how to spell it."

These were, of course, famous last words. Dally turned to the nurse and filled out the birth certificate in exactly the way he thought he ought to. Later that night, when Lucy saw a copy of the birth certificate, her heart dropped to discover that her baby Elinor was now and forever named …

"E-L-E-N-O-R-E," she said.

"Yeah?" Dally asked. "Ain't that her name?"

"That's now how you spell it in _Sense and Sensibility_. Nor is it the traditional spelling. I'm impressed by how wrong this is."

"Sounds like it should be the only spelling to me. It sounds right. It looks right. Must be right. Am I right?"

"Don't be cute."

She turned the baby – Elenore – to face Dally. He almost smiled.

"Being cute is her job now," Lucy said. "How's she doing?"

"She's alright."

They were quiet for some time, trying to process what had happened that day. Lucy had a baby – a baby they would have to take home and raise and teach right from wrong, though it seemed impossible that Dallas Winston could manage that. They would have to feed her and clothe her and teach her to walk. They would have to teach her to speak and to read and to memorize her address in case she ever got lost on her way home from a friend's house. Lucy knew she was getting ahead of herself (as though any child she had in common with Dallas Winston would be sociable enough to have _friends_), but she was nothing if not impatient. This baby was the proof.

Lucy decided not to think about the future for too long. She would go out of her mind if she thought about the next hour too hard. In that moment, there were only three things that mattered: She and Elenore were safe and healthy, Dally was there with them, and when Lucy said that she needed to get some sleep after feeding Elenore, Dally asked if he could hold her. He was, to her shock, excellent at holding the baby. It felt out of character, but as she knew from years of court-mandated reading, characters weren't interesting unless they managed to change every now and then.

"I kind of like the way you spelled her name," Lucy said before she nodded off. "We can tell people it's like Austen mixed with Poe."

A pause. She figured Dally must not understand.

"Sorry," she said. "There's this poem by Edgar Allan Poe …"

"I know the one," Dally interrupted her. "The one with the raven and _Lenore _and that bullshit. Pony fuckin' loves it. He read it once on Halloween when I was a kid. Guess I remembered it."

"You've read Poe?"

"Sorta. I've read a lot of stuff. You just don't notice 'cause you're busy readin' more. Can you go to sleep, please? You ain't very fun when you're tired."

Lucy muttered some choice words for Dally, who joked about not cursing in front of the baby. He looked down at Elenore in his arms one more time. He couldn't stop looking at her. Maybe it wasn't love, but it was fascination. He'd been up close to a lot of people before – Elenore's mama included – yet he'd never been so aware of somebody else's heartbeat.

* * *

"Will you be her godfather?"

Soda looked up from Elenore in his arms. His look of love and adoration suddenly morphed into one of shock and awe. He stared at Lucy, who was now able to sit up straight in her hospital bed, wondering if she really meant what she said.

"Me?" he asked.

"Do you see anyone else around?"

He pointed to Sadie, who waved from the corner of the room. She'd already had a particularly long turn holding Elenore but was still noticeably jealous that it was Soda's turn now. Instantly as Lucy put baby Elenore in her arms, Sadie knew they had a connection. There was nothing sweeter than Sadie looking down at Elenore and saying, "We're gonna be best friends. Just don't tell your mama. I'm afraid she'll get jealous." That was, of course, until Soda couldn't believe that Lucy wanted him to be Elenore's godfather.

"She's already the godmother," Lucy said. She looked over at Sadie.

"Sorry I never formally asked you," she added.

"It's OK," Sadie said. "I assumed."

Lucy laughed, and Soda kept looking at her, still in denial that Lucy would want him to play a role that important in her baby's life. If she had doubts about involving Dally in Elenore's life, and Dally was her father, then why would she be so sure about the guy who'd been arrested for something as dumb as public handstands?

"But if Sadie's the godmother, shouldn't I not be the godfather?" he asked. "You usually pick godparents as a couple, don't ya?"

"I'm picking a couple of twins," Lucy said. "It's barely different."

"Still. Ain't Johnny gonna feel jealous if his girl's the godmother, but he ain't the godfather?"

"Pretty sure that'd be true if I had a baby by some other guy," Sadie said. "Not sure it works when your friend makes you and your brother a baby's godparents. I'm pretty sure there's something different about that."

Soda rolled his eyes at Sadie; then, he looked back down at Elenore. She was almost a full day old, and she could open her eyes with ease now. She locked eyes with Soda, and he was almost moved to tears when he saw how blue Elenore's eyes really were. He wanted to cry. Those eyes were the same as Lucy's. With Lucy's eyes, that girl would be set for life.

"What's a godfather do, anyway?" Soda asked.

"You look out for her," Lucy said. "If something happens to me, you take her in, at least, you know. Like a symbol. You're like her built-in first friend. You're somebody for her to play with when she's little, and when she's older, you're somebody she can talk to about boys … you know, if she discovers she likes them."

Soda nodded. He looked at Elenore one more time, and he could have sworn he saw her smile. Babies weren't supposed to smile when they were that tiny, but he was pretty sure Elenore did. It wouldn't surprise anyone. From the minute Lucy pushed her out, she was inundated with smiles and love, even from her father.

"Do you want to be Elenore's godfather?" Lucy asked. "Don't think about it. Just answer me."

"Course I do."

He looked back and forth between Lucy and Elenore, trying to figure out if they looked alike. Of course, newborn babies didn't look much like anything. The only identifiable feature he saw on Elenore was her scowl – Dally's. Soda laughed quietly. It was one thing to see that scowl on a hood. It was another to see the same one on a tiny baby. He wasn't sure if it made the baby tougher or if it made Dally softer, but it was sure funny.

"Well, then, it's settled," Lucy said.

"You talk to Dally about this?"

"I mentioned it. With respect to my husband, I don't think he has very strong opinions on things like godparents."

She paused. Before Soda could say anything, Lucy spoke again.

"He told me that he talked to you before he decided not to bail on us," Lucy was close to whispering. "He told me that you went to our place after he skipped my graduation. He told me about everything."

Now, Sadie looked up and wrinkled her nose at her twin, confused. She'd never heard anything about that, and yet, somehow she knew. Of course, she never told Soda that back when Lucy first realized how she felt about Dally, she went down to the Slash J and strong-armed him into coming to see her on her birthday, and somehow, he knew about that, too. She had a small smile to herself that Soda and Lucy were too busy to see. What a wonderful thing it was to be a twin.

"He didn't need me to tell him any of that," Soda said. "He came back 'cause he wanted to. I was just there."

"Doesn't matter," Lucy said. "You got him to talk. You listened to him. I never thought anybody could do that for him. Besides … you think I'm gonna let just _anybody _be my baby's godfather, or do you think I'm gonna pick my own brother?"

It was quite possible that Soda had never grinned that wide in his whole life. If she weren't so heavy and exhausted, Lucy would have smiled, too. Before Sadie, she'd pretended that she was the fourth Dashwood sister – pretended she was actually Elizabeth Bennet, and she was best friends with Charlotte Lucas. After Sadie, she had a sister and brothers and friends … and an Elenore. Scary as she was, Lucy had to admit it. She kind of liked Elenore a little bit.

"Yeah," Soda said. "Yeah, I'll be her godfather."

He held on tightly to Elenore, feeling almost like he didn't want to let her go – didn't want to give her back to her mom. Something told him he needed to make the most of his time with Elenore … like maybe he wouldn't see her for a long time. Eventually, he handed Elenore back to Lucy, who turned her around to face the twins at the foot of the bed.

"Elenore," she said, firmly stating her name to make sure that she would learn it. "Look."

None of them could confirm it later on, and it seemed impossible, but all three of the adults in that room were certain that Elenore knew how to listen to Lucy and looked straight at Sadie and Soda.

"See my friends," Lucy said. "See my friends. They're your friends, too."

They knew that was true, of course, but none of them could have predicted how true it would come to be.

* * *

Most everyone fell absolutely in love with Elenore Bennet Winston in that first week she was born. Lilly was a little bitter that Lucy hadn't decided to name the baby Lilly after all, and Ponyboy almost seemed jealous of her since she was getting so much of Soda's attention. Even Violet, who met Elenore in the middle of Great Books (Lucy and Sadie thought it was best not to invite her to the Curtis house because they still hadn't resolved what happened with Jane.), thought it was almost acceptable for something that was half Dally to roam free.

"She lives in a fuckin' bookstore," Violet said. "She's gonna be more like her old lady either way."

Violet never once asked to hold Elenore. It wasn't a surprise, but Lucy did notice that she was the only one. It was understandable.

The only person who didn't have much to say about Elenore was Dally. He didn't appear to like or dislike her, but he kept his distance. He'd hold her if Lucy asked, and one time, he'd even gotten up to check on her in the middle of the night because Lucy looked like she was about to faint. Lucy didn't bother asking him about it. By the time Elenore was two weeks old, it seemed like their normal.

Dally could tell that Lucy was worried about whether or not he liked the baby. He wouldn't ask her to talk about it. He never would have, anyway, but he was particularly aware that neither of them wanted to have that talk. Of course, he had that talk with himself everyday … every hour, really, was more like it.

It wasn't that he didn't like Elenore. He almost liked her – if for nothing else, because she was his, and it felt wrong not to like something he made. Learning to like his baby was his way of sticking it to his folks. If they couldn't manage to like him, fuck them. He'd manage to like his kid just to piss them off, wherever they'd gone. There was also something about Elenore's face, and anybody who was growing up to look that much like him and Lucy put together had to be worth getting to know. It was kind of funny, when he thought about it. Those might have been Lucy's eyes, he thought, but damn, if those weren't his eyebrows. And though he still woke up everyday and thought that Lucy and Elenore would both be better off if he just packed up without even leaving a note, he never left. He didn't have a particular reason for staying. He did love Lucy, but he never told her. Besides, he could go on loving her without waking up next to her every morning. Then again, if she were willing to crawl into bed with him at night, why would he give that up? If it meant getting to stay next to Lucy, who understood him better than anyone (even, sometimes, more than himself), he'd have to start doing things for the baby – for Elenore.

It still felt strange to say her name. It felt strange to say all girls' first names, when he thought about it. Sometimes, he could manage to refer to Lucy as _Lucy, _but it was still hard. He knew that Lilly Cade and Katie Mathews had first names, but he was more inclined to call them "Johnny's kid sister" and "Two-Bit's kid sister." Jane Randle was always Jane Randle – first name and last name. Even Violet became _V_. The only girl he could manage to call by her first name only was Sadie, and that had to be because when he was a kid – before he knew what a girl was – he'd met Sadie alongside her brothers. He didn't know why. It was just true. He had to practice saying Elenore's name over and over until it started to sound like a name. Elenore. Elenore. Elenore.

The more he said it, the easier it became to stick around. He didn't know why. It was just true.

One morning, three weeks after Elenore was born, Dally left the apartment with an agenda – an agenda that probably wouldn't lead to any jail time, a notable first. Lucy was back to work in the store, and Dr. and Mrs. Bennet were watching Elenore to cut her a bit of a break. When she asked Dally where he was going, he didn't tell her, but he told her that she'd be happy when he came back.

"So, you're coming back, then?" she asked.

"I wouldn't say so if I was lyin'."

"I'll believe you today. Check back with me tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah. You said you'd be here."

Dally almost cracked a smile, waved some sort of goodbye at her, and walked out the door. Once he was gone, Lucy put the eraser end of her pencil in her mouth and bit down, still blushing like a little girl with a crush, not a wife and a mother. She didn't feel like any of those things. The past year and a half had been this strange, perpetual state of in-between-ness. She couldn't decide if she loved or hated it. She only knew that once, when she wasn't supposed to be awake or listening, she saw Dally standing over Elenore's crib, asking her if she wanted him to read _Fahrenheit 451 _or _Giovanni's Room _to her to get her to go back to sleep. Lucy did not care that these were not books you were supposed to read to a newborn baby. She only cared that he was talking to Elenore, and he had no idea Lucy was watching.

* * *

When Dally came into the grocery store and asked if he could work there, Two-Bit couldn't have been more confused if you plopped him down in front of _In Search of Lost Time_. Dally wasn't the kind of guy who worked a job with a schedule. He was barely the kind of guy who worked a job. He especially wasn't the kind of guy who worked a job where they had you put on a vest and a nametag. That was the furthest thing from cool, and if there was one word everybody could always agree on to describe Dallas Winston, it was _cool_. A job as a bagboy at a grocery store would ruin that forever.

"I don't get it, man," Two-Bit said. "Ain't you swiped from this store before?"

"Ain't you?"

Two-Bit shrugged. He couldn't fight him on that one.

"I just can't see you workin' the kind of job with a shift. Or the kind of job where they want ya to help people."

"Well, get used to it. I'm working with you now."

"But how come? You and Buck get in a fight? He steal your man, and now you ain't speakin' or somethin'?"

"What, like girls?"

"Yeah, like girls."

"Better watch it. I got a daughter now."

Two-Bit snapped his fingers as though he had forgotten about Elenore (because he had). He was real happy that Lucy seemed real happy and that Dally hadn't left her by her lonesome, but he was busy thinking about stuff he hadn't shared with the gang yet. He was thinking about Lilly, who was going into her last year of high school now, and how well he'd really gotten to know her since that night in October '65 that screwed with everybody's heads. She didn't look a thing like the blondes he usually went after, but it was starting not to matter very much. Lilly was quick on her feet – much funnier than he was, and he was ready and able to admit that to her face. She was sweet, too, and real pretty. She was prettier and prettier each time he looked at her. He might have even said something to one of the guys, but he knew it always took some getting used to when one of them was trying to make it with one of their sisters. It was strange, considering how many times it had happened now, but it was always true. Even Pony hadn't looked at Johnny in quite the same way since he started going with Sadie. Two-Bit might have liked Lilly a little bit, but he wasn't going to say anything, especially not when she was still in high school. And after all, it wasn't like it mattered. He couldn't tell Lilly that he thought he might like her for the same reason he couldn't tell Dally that the only reason they hired him down at the grocery store was because he was about to replace Two-Bit. He hadn't told anyone about that letter he'd gotten in the mail. Part of him blamed it on the baby business, though he knew that wasn't all. The truth was that he hadn't told anyone because he didn't know how to say it. He didn't know how to make it clever. Something had to have sense to be clever, and this didn't make any sense at all.

Two-Bit decided to focus on Dally's attempt at playing Mr. Domestic. _That _could be funny. He could work with that.

"That's it," he said. "You're gettin' a new job so you can afford to keep that baby of yours."

"Ya say that like I oughta be ashamed of it or somethin'," Dally said. "I know that voice by now. It's the parole-officer voice."

"Naw, you don't gotta be ashamed. I'm just about ready to die of shock. I can't believe you're still here. How come you're still here, anyway? Just 'cause you don't wanna get blown up?"

Dally didn't say anything. He had an answer. In fact, he had a few. Just because he had an answer, of course, didn't mean he was going to share it with Two-Bit. It had been almost three years since he caught him trying to mess with Violet, and it had been almost two years since Dally had gone to jail for him. Nonetheless, Dally still hadn't quite forgiven him for any of it. Two-Bit was his buddy, and there was also some sort of solidarity and support between buddies. That didn't mean they went around telling each other the truth about everything. That would be much too much. He didn't even share his whole truths with Lucy, and she was the only person who even really began to know him (including, for reasons that did not make him feel great, Violet).

He thought about what Soda said a little while after they found out Lucy was pregnant (with Elenore). You didn't need a reason for loving somebody. He didn't need a reason to love Lucy and didn't need a real reason to stay. It just felt like what he wanted to do. She never asked him to do it, which helped. That was the tuff thing about Lucy, among a number of tuff things. She knew him so well that she could play him to get what she wanted. That was one slick broad. He was impressed every time she managed to play him. It was so tuff he couldn't even really get mad about it.

"Ya know what's better than any money?" Dally finally asked.

"More money?"

"Women. 'F I work this job, I don't lose my woman. And I ain't dumb."

That was enough for that. It needed to be. Thinking about Elenore was still too much, though it was getting easier to refer to her by name even in his thoughts. He was there for her, but it was too hard to admit it to himself. There was something underneath it that he hadn't figured out, and for the first time in his life, he wanted to find out what it was.

* * *

The first time Lucy left Dally alone with Elenore was when she was almost two months old. She wanted to – needed to, really – have some time away from the apartment and be with Sadie. At first, she didn't think that was going to be possible, but Dally was pretty sure he could handle a few hours alone with the baby (Elenore). While Lucy mostly trusted him to look after his own daughter, it was still nearly impossible for her to walk out the door. She hadn't been away from Elenore for more than about forty-five minutes at a time since she was born, and the thought of being away from her for longer (Two hours at the most, which she promised both her husband and her daughter) was terrifying. As soon as she started her walk toward Sadie's, she had to hold in the waterworks. The only thing that comforted her was that upstairs in the apartment, Elenore was probably close to sobbing, too.

Surprisingly, Lucy was wrong about that. Elenore's feelings about her father were hit or miss. Some nights, she cried when he walked anywhere near her because he was tall and scary and didn't smell a thing like her mama. Other nights, she'd fuss and cry in Lucy's arms because she was hungry but didn't want to eat, and it was only the sight of her father that could calm her down. When that would happen, Lucy would look up to Dally with tired eyes and say something like, "Biology is king. Only Dallas Winston's daughter could find Dallas Winston soothing." He'd usually give her a smirk for that. Even when she was beat to hell, Bennet was still the smartest person he'd ever known, including himself.

That night, Elenore was pretty content to be with her daddy. Her mama had fed her before she went out, and she was feeling pretty good. Dally, on the other hand, wasn't feeling too great. He knew he could make it two hours with the kid since two hours wasn't that long. But he didn't realize how _boring _it would be. Elenore, compared to a lot of kids, as he would eventually learn, was pretty well behaved. As it turned out, well-behaved infants were _boring_. There wasn't even anything particularly intimidating about her. She just sat there and kind of messed with her own hands. Dally couldn't help but think that maybe the kid was bored, too.

He groaned and walked over to Lucy's pile of books near their bed. After scanning them, he moved them around and grabbed one from the middle.

"I don't really know what to do with you, kid," he said. "Elenore."

Saying it out loud was still too strange. He stuck out his tongue as though to erase the taste of her name on it. It wasn't an ugly name by any stretch. It was just one of his hang-ups he figured he'd never solve.

"I don't really know what to do with you, so I guess I'll read to ya. That's what your mama would do, ain't it?"

She looked at him blankly because as an infant, that was essentially all she could do. Still, Dally had a feeling that the look meant to say, "My mama would say you're not allowed to say _ain't _in front of me because that teaches me bad English." He sighed and opened the book. Like all Lucy's books, he knew it wasn't one that you were supposed to read to a little baby. It was too long, and he probably didn't even understand all the words and ideas in it himself. Lucy had to read it for one class or another during her second semester in college, so he'd heard a few things. Either way, he knew it didn't matter who was supposed to read the book he picked out for the kid. Lucy didn't necessarily believe that kids could only hear stuff that was made for kids. While she was still pregnant, she told him that she had resolved to speak to her child like a person, no matter how tiny she was. Because he (perhaps begrudgingly, but less so with time) respected Lucy, he knew he had to try his best to do what she would want if she were there.

"'Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,'" he read.

Then, he groaned. Great. He was already lost.

That didn't seem to matter to Elenore. When he looked back up at her, she was smiling at him. In the past two weeks or so, she smiled at Lucy a couple times while she was feeding her, but she'd never smiled at Dally … until that night when they were alone together. The smile didn't quite melt his heart or take down any layers of scar tissue. He wasn't sure anyone could do that, regardless of how much they might love him (and Elenore, as a baby, had no choice but to love him). But it was enough to make him see that he _could be _loved. It was enough to make him know that it was just a fondness he had for his daughter because she was his daughter. No. He loved her, too. He wasn't ready to tell her, and he thought maybe he'd never be. But admitting it to himself … that was shockingly easy. Maybe Sodapop was right. Maybe you didn't need a reason to love somebody – you just did.

"Want me to keep going?" he asked.

Elenore smiled, and for the first time since he'd found out about her, Dally knew what to do.

* * *

**And there you have it … Elenore! I know it wasn't much of a spoiler considering the one shots, but I hope the "how" of her birth was at least a little rewarding.**

**Indeed, Elenore was born on April 24, 1967 – the publication date of **_**The Outsiders**_**. Sometimes I'm clever.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**, which, like my Elenore, turns fifty-two today. Dally reads from **_**David Copperfield **_**while he stays up with Elenore because any Charles Dickens narrative is appropriate for the context of **_**The Outsiders**_**. Dickens is, obviously, the public domain.**


	12. Chapter 12

The summer was not easy. In Lucy's opinion, that was the understatement of the decade.

She had cried (in private) when they were made to say goodbye to Two-Bit in the middle of July, and she had cried harder when Lilly came to her and cried about missing him right after he told her he might have loved her. Elenore was growing faster than Lucy could reasonably keep up with. Everyday, she wanted more and more to eat, and she was getting worse at sleeping during the night. By August, Elenore was doing what the doctor called "reverse cycling—" nursing in the middle of the night and almost refusing anything to drink during the day. Through that month, Elenore slept all day and was awake all night; accordingly, Lucy was awake all day and into the night. Lucy loved Elenore more than anyone in the world. She had since the moment she was born. But some nights, at three in the morning when Lucy would rather be asleep, she almost prayed for her own death. Of course, she never quite wished for that. She couldn't risk leaving Elenore all alone in the world (read: with Dally, who probably wouldn't have much to say to her even if he did kind of like her, and with Soda, who would undoubtedly find a way to turn ketchup purple and serve _that _to his goddaughter for dinner in her mother's absence).

In his defense, Dally gave Lucy a break whenever either of them could manage it. Oftentimes, he was at working, bagging groceries for customers he hated and probably ripped off at some point or another, and Lucy didn't even have the option to call him for help. There were also those times when Elenore would scream and yell like a banshee, and the only thing that seemed to soothe her was being rocked by her mother. But sometimes, on an early evening when neither Lucy nor Dally was working on anything, Dally would turn to his wife, tell her to get some sleep, and he'd stay up with Elenore. As she drifted off into sleep, Lucy would watch her husband and her daughter get acquainted with one another. Dally, naturally, was not the warmest parent. He would hold Elenore and balance a book in between himself and the baby; then he would read to her from one of the hundreds of books Lucy had laying around in the apartment and down in the store. He was not warm with the baby, but you couldn't call him cold, either. He was just Dally. It was almost funny, Lucy thought, and then she fell asleep.

One night toward the end of August, when Elenore was finally putting a stop to that whole reverse cycling thing, Dally looked at Lucy and told her (for the umpteenth time since Elenore had been born) that she looked terrible. She rolled her eyes and, once again, called him a true romantic.

"I ain't tryin' to be cute," he said. "Ya look hit."

"And you care?"

Dally didn't say anything. He couldn't make himself admit it, and besides, he didn't even need to. Lucy could see right through him. She nodded a little, wordlessly understanding him. He almost had to smile at her. She looked like she might vomit or pass out or both, and though she did not look at all pretty, there was something almost fun about seeing her that way. It wasn't that it was funny to see her look ugly or in pain, as he wasn't incredibly fond of that. He just liked that she was there and that she was real. It sounded cheesy as hell, and he knew it. Then again, he'd been feeling more and more different everyday since Lucy had Elenore. This was just another one of those moments, he supposed.

"Get some sleep," he said.

"I have to make sure Elenore gets to sleep first. You know this."

"Hey, she's my kid, too, ain't she? You trust me to get her to sleep?"

Lucy nodded. Perhaps it was stupid of her to trust that Dallas Winston could be a decent father, even once Elenore was already four months old. Dally hadn't done anything too reckless or thoughtless since they brought the baby home, and he always seemed to be around unless he was working. It hadn't been like that before Elenore – not even when Lucy was pregnant. She'd seen him hold Elenore and talk to her and act like he liked her, and perhaps not all of it was bull. If it were, she had a feeling he would have left already. After all, Dally didn't do anything unless he wanted to, and for him to do stay for this …

She turned off her thoughts, kissed his cheek (at which he still bristled – it was so _soft _of her to do that), and muttered that yes, she did trust him to get Elenore to sleep. He told her to go to bed, and he'd take care of it. Perhaps stupidly, she believed him, but not completely. As she convincingly feigned sleep, she watched Dally try to put Elenore to sleep through mostly closed eyes. Now that she was a mother, Lucy knew that no matter what happened and no matter who was with her (even if it was Dally), she wouldn't be able to sleep unless she knew that Elenore was OK.

Dally picked Elenore up and sat with her in the (less dusty than before) armchair. As he lifted her up, Lucy heard him murmur, "C'mon, kid. Elenore. You gotta sleep sometime, don't ya?" Elenore fussed a little before she recognized that she was with her father. Lucy smiled sleepily. So, it was going to be one of those nights. Thank goodness. She could rest.

She kept watching, though neither Dally nor Elenore could have known that she wasn't quite asleep. Dally was talking quietly to Elenore … quietly enough so that Lucy couldn't hear, but she figured it couldn't have been anything too terrible. At four months old, Elenore already appeared to be an excellent judge of bull. When her grandmother was holding her and asked how old she'd have to be before they were allowed to pierce her ears and make her pretty, Elenore began to wail. Lucy had to hide a grin behind her hand for that one.

Out of Lucy's earshot, Dally was sitting with Elenore, almost rocking her but not quite. He still hadn't figured out how to do that, even though Lucy had gotten on his ass about it.

"It doesn't matter if you don't think rocking the baby is cool or not," she'd said. "It helps her sleep, and when she sleeps, we sleep."

He thought about that every time he was made to hold Elenore (though recently, he'd been volunteering to hold her more frequently), but he still felt pretty silly. It was like he was playing a part – the role of Daddy played terribly by Dallas Winston. He knew he was awful at it, and it scared the hell out of him to be anywhere near the kid when she was really crying. But he wasn't about to leave. As tempting as it was on those nights that Elenore would sob and sob until she tired herself out, he still refused to leave. It was everyone expected, and somewhere down the way, he decided he didn't want to do the thing that people expected out of him. Somewhere down the way, he had grown so tired of being the person everyone else expected him to be. He couldn't explain it, precisely, but he thought it might have something to do with how shocked he still was that Lucy had been arrested for aggravated assault when she was a kid. She'd proven everybody wrong. Maybe he could, too.

He was still out of Lucy's earshot when he held Elenore that night, which he was grateful for. Just because he wasn't going anywhere didn't mean he needed someone to know that he could, on occasion, be almost kind to the kid. Her fussing started up again, and in an attempt to calm her down, Dally spoke to her.

"Hey, you don't gotta do that," he said, being especially careful to keep his voice down. "You don't gotta cry. You're a tough kid."

Elenore let out a little cry, almost like she, at four months old, was trying to prove him wrong. He smirked when he thought of that. Leave it to his and Bennet's kid, he supposed.

"I know ya want your ma," he said. "I want her, too. But we gotta cut her a break if we want her to want us back."

After he said that, Elenore calmed down a little. It was almost like she could understand him. Maybe she could feel how his heart rate kept going up and down every time he held her. In less than a minute, he ranged from cautiously comfortable to utterly terrified. Elenore was a smart kid. She must have known that he didn't know how to love her. At the very least, he didn't know how to show her that he loved her (even if part of him – most of him – wanted to).

The longer he held onto her, the calmer they both became. Suddenly, and without his recognition, it began to feel like he was no longer playing the role of Daddy. He just _was _one. For the briefest flicker of a moment, it was like he knew exactly what to do, or like he had always planned on becoming a father. In the back of his mind, he knew it was all bullshit, and by the time he woke up in the morning (or the afternoon, depending on how long the kid kept him awake), he'd be uncertain and anxious all over again. In this very fleeting moment, however, he knew he needed to be right there.

He leaned forward a bit and, without thinking (just moving), he instinctively kissed the top of Elenore's head. He'd never done anything like that before, and it would be a long, long time before he did anything like it again. But in that moment, he didn't overthink it. In fact, he hadn't given it any thought at all. To kiss the top of the baby's head – to kiss Elenore – felt more comfortable than breathing and blinking.

Dally didn't know that Lucy hadn't fallen asleep yet. He didn't know that while she'd heard nothing, she'd seen everything. Of course, it was better that way. In that case, there was no way he could call it a performance.

* * *

Where summer, in the heat, the stress, and the loss, had not been easy, the fall was quickly becoming much worse. In September, Sadie was counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday, since on the day after, she'd tell Darry about her plan to quickly marry Johnny and get out of his hair. Katie got a letter from Two-Bit with not one wisecrack in it, which made her so sick that it scared the hell out of everyone else. And Lucy was going back to school full time, which meant that on the days he wasn't working, Dally was left alone with Elenore.

Most days, he managed OK. He'd figured out how to change her, but generally, she kicked up a fit when he tried to feed her out of a bottle. When he considered what the kid was used to, he really couldn't blame her. They settled into a routine pretty quickly. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Lucy was out of the house from nine to two, taking classes in Victorian novels, political philosophy (Dally had tried to read _The Republic _behind Lucy's back, but it was too boring.), and astronomy, which she was certain she was going to fail. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lucy was only gone for two hours at a time. Though Dally expected to be less stressed on the days Lucy was gone for shorter periods of time, he couldn't have been more wrong in his assumption. If he was made to stay home with Elenore on a Tuesday or a Thursday, she would cry harder than ever before with no discernible reason other than missing her mother. She would leave the house for much longer on other days, but there was something about a Tuesday or a Thursday that made Elenore tick. Dally didn't have the energy to find out what it was, but he did (in some way) hope that the answer presented itself to him. Then, he remembered that Elenore was five months old, and there was no reason. She was only a baby.

One particular Thursday in October was so awful that Dally was surprised he didn't just jump out the window and end it right there. At the time, he thought the only reason he didn't was because he knew Lucy would try to give him a proper funeral, and even though he wouldn't be there, he hated the thought of a bunch of people gathered together to talk about what a train wreck he'd been.

But Elenore really was too much for him. As soon as she woke up and saw that Lucy wasn't there, she opened her mouth and wailed so loudly that it scared the customers downstairs in the shop. He heard Eddie explain that there was a family upstairs, and you'd have to excuse them – this didn't usually happen during the day since Elenore was such a well-behaved baby. Dally was almost nervous that Eddie would try to kick them out for scaring the customers away, and Lucy would kick Dally out for not keeping Elenore quiet enough. But he stopped thinking about it the minute he happened upon it. He couldn't afford to think about it – not with a screaming infant in his arms.

Elenore made a string of "Mmmmm" sounds, which was either part of her crying or an attempt to cry out for her mom. Weren't all cries just a cry out for somebody's mom? Dally tried harder than ever to rock the kid to sleep, even if it made him look uncool. He didn't care; this was his apartment (his _home_), and no one could see him, anyway. If he didn't get that baby (_Elenore_) to shut up (_Be quiet_), he was sure he'd be without a home in no time flat. Without a home, without a kid, and without a wife. It sounded like everything he thought he'd have (or lack) and everything he thought he should want, but the second he pictured it all falling apart, he needed to save it. He didn't know why. Maybe even he could get comfortable somewhere.

But _this _wasn't comfortable. This was torture. It didn't matter what he tried to help the kid do. He rocked her; she cried. He fed her; she cried. He changed her; she cried. He read to her; she cried. It drove him crazy to know that there was something wrong with the kid, and she couldn't just open her mouth and tell him in English. It drove him even crazier to know that he was the only person he knew who was a father, and he couldn't ask anybody for help. Darry had looked after Pony and Soda after their folks died, but he wasn't a father. He didn't have to deal with their crying the way Dally had to deal with Elenore. Darry could just _talk _to his kid brothers when he was responsible for them. What Dally had on his hands was a guessing game, and the only reason he wasn't walking away was an obstinate desire to prove everybody wrong … to finally get the hell over that night in the kitchen when Violet was eight years old. He couldn't be there for his kid sister then. He'd be there for his kid now. He'd be there for her even if that meant swallowing his pride and dialing a number he didn't want to dial. Dialing that number meant admitting to weakness and to defeat. It didn't matter anymore. Dallas Winston was mostly invincible, he figured, but a hysterical baby was a match for anyone.

"Hello?" the voice on the other line answered.

"Hey, man."

"Dally?"

"Yeah."

"Is everything all right over there? Sounds like Elenore's cryin'."

"She is, man. I can't get her to fuckin' stop. Can you … can you come over here an' help me?"

"You're asking _me _for _help_?"

"Don't celebrate it."

"I ain't. I'll be there in half an hour."

Dally hung up the phone and clutched the cord, both because he was beyond annoyed with Elenore's constant wailing and because he couldn't believe he'd gone weak and soft like that. Surely, now, everyone would know that he wasn't the guy he used to be. Surely, now, everyone would know that he was whipped … useless. Of course, at least part of him knew better now. It was better to be whipped by a broad than have no broad at all.

Elenore began to sob louder, and he prayed for that half an hour to fly by.

* * *

About half an hour after hanging up the phone, Sodapop Curtis came waltzing in with nothing more than an old 45 of some song Dally was pretty sure he hated. He didn't even seem to make a face at Elenore's crying, which Dally (to his chagrin) found disheartening. Soda wasn't a father, even if he'd been ready to play the part years earlier. He wasn't even a father, and he was more equipped for the job than Dally ever could be. It wasn't surprising, given Soda had had a real daddy when he was a kid, but it was still disappointing. Dally did love Elenore (in his own way), and he was never going to have the tools to give her the kind of love that she kept asking for, regardless of whether she could speak.

That had been his suspicion all day. He just didn't want to confront it. Elenore was probably crying like this because she missed her mama, and she knew she didn't have a good enough daddy. It didn't matter how much he loved the kid or how much he wanted to be there for her. He was always going to be Dally. He was always going to be ill prepared. Maybe he ought to leave the kid with Soda after all.

The thought of Lucy getting pissed at him, even if he didn't have to see it, was enough to make him stay put. He loved it when she was angry – thought that was when she was her most beautiful. He didn't love when she was angry with him. He couldn't explain it, but it was true.

"You got a record player somewhere, don't ya?" Soda asked.

"In the corner, by Lucy's Dickens," Dally said. "What's that gonna do?"

"Well, I'm hopin' it's a distraction."

He put the 45 on, and Elenore was still wailing like a banshee – whatever a banshee was. Dr. Bennet used the word all the time without explaining himself. That was what literature professors did. They used a lot of literary words and then expected you to know all of them. It bugged the hell out of Dally, but at least Lucy was there to give him notes. Lucy was always there to give him notes, and about more things than just the book learning. He wasn't prepared to lose that, but he knew he'd have no choice if he didn't learn how to take care of this baby – take care of Elenore.

The song was every bit as gross as Dally worried it would be – "Goodnight, Irene." Despite the fact that he hated it with every part of him, Elenore's wailing went from a quiet cry to … he peered over into her crib, and about a minute into the song, she was asleep. Dally looked up at Soda, feeling, for the first time in his entire life, baffled. Soda was wearing that shit-eating grin of his. For the first time since they were little kids, Dally didn't even want to smack the grin off Soda's face.

"What the hell, man?" Dally asked. "How'd you know that would work?"

"Ponyboy cried _a lot _when he was a baby," Soda said.

"Am I supposed to be shocked?"

"Naw, of course not. Mom and Dad tried everything to get him to stop, but nothin' helped. Nothin' but 'Goodnight, Irene.' I figured if it worked for one kid, it might work for another."

Dally looked into the crib again. Elenore looked as fast and as peacefully asleep as she did when she fell out on Lucy's chest. He looked at her more closely to see if she was starting to look more like either one of her folks. Maybe that was his chin. He couldn't just walk out on somebody who had his chin. Then, he'd have to go the rest of his life knowing that there was some girl out there with the same chin as he had, and he wouldn't even know her. Now that he'd seen it, he'd never be able to forget it – never be able to let it go. He'd have to stay with Elenore forever, and the more he thought on it, the less horrible it seemed.

"She gonna start thinkin' her name's Irene or somethin'?" Dally asked.

"Well, Pony didn't," Soda said.

"And if Pony was smart enough to know the difference between himself and Irene, my kid sure as hell is."

Soda wanted to ask Dally why he'd called him. All those times Soda pulled him aside and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, he was pretty sure Dally was bound to hate him more than he already hated everything that crossed his path. Then again, he knew he hadn't forced Dally into doing anything. He apologized to Lucy for missing her graduation because he wanted to; he went back into the hospital to meet and hold Elenore because he wanted to. The same answer went for that day. He called Soda to help with Elenore's crying because he wanted to. It was important to him, and he wanted to.

The thought was still bewildering – Dally sticking around to be somebody's husband and somebody's daddy – but admittedly, it was getting more and more believable each day. Soda saw the way he looked at Elenore in her crib. It wasn't like his cold, cold heart had melted over or anything, but it was like Elenore meant something to him. Like now that he had her, he couldn't let her go. Soda had to admit it was impressive. Even Dally could let himself love somebody else.

"Things are all right up here?" Soda asked. "You an' Lucy? You an' Elenore?"

Dally nodded. He wasn't going to give Soda a play-by-play, if that was what he wanted. He knew he did. He just nodded and hoped that Elenore would stay asleep. Lucy would be home in about half an hour, and he didn't want her to be the one who had to deal with all the crying. She had plenty of work to do. It was his job to take care of the baby – of Elenore – when Lucy was studying, and he was OK with that. He was OK with anything that meant …

He stopped. Sometimes, even though he knew how much he loved his wife, it was still too much for him to think, even quietly.

"I ain't packin' my bags, if that's what you mean," Dally finally said.

"It wasn't," Soda said, "but I'm glad."

"Can't really pack my bags when I …"

He wasn't sure if he would have finished that thought, but it didn't matter. In that moment, Lucy unlocked the door and walked inside, half an hour earlier than she usually did. Dally couldn't have been gladder to see her if he tried. It wasn't even just because he knew that Elenore always cried less when her mama was in the room. It was that for him, everything was better when Lucy was there. She was cool, and that was saying the least. Then again, _he _was cool, and part of being cool was always saying the least.

"You ain't supposed to be home yet," Dally said.

"Good eye," Lucy said. "And it's lovely to see you, too."

Her eyes flickered toward Soda as she asked him what he was doing there.

"Came to help Dally out with a little baby problem," he said. Dally made a note to pound the sand out of him later, when his girls – _his girls? – _weren't looking. He should have known better than to tell Lucy, the toughest broad he'd ever known, that he was having a problem with Elenore. She was bound to castigate him for not being a good enough daddy, just like they'd talked about a few months before Elenore was born. On second thought, however, he knew that Soda knew better. He knew much better, and that was why he'd said something. Dally had to give it up to the kid. He was much smarter than everybody gave him credit.

Lucy didn't look upset. She turned to Dally with some concern in her eyes, but she didn't look like she was going to yell at him. He was, much to his own surprise, relieved.

"Is she OK?" Lucy asked.

"I think so," Dally answered; careful not to make eye contact with the toughest broad he'd ever known. He didn't feel like taking a tongue lashing, and he could feel Lucy gearing up for one.

"She was just a little sad today," Soda said. "Ya know, babies get nervous, too."

_Nervous? _Because she'd been left at home alone with her daddy? Soda was really in for it now. It'd be a wonder if he could walk by the time Dally was through with him. Did either of them really expect Lucy to stick around after hearing that Elenore was nervous to spend the day with her own daddy? Was he so inept that even a five-month-old infant could smell it on him? He moved toward the closet, ready to dismiss himself before Lucy could beat him to the punch.

But Lucy still wasn't mad. She stood over Elenore's crib and watched her with a look of kindness and sympathy on her pretty face. For the second time in his life (and all on the same day), Dally found himself _baffled_.

"She's just getting used to her new schedule," Lucy said. "I think it just dawned on her that things are different now. Mama's around less."

She looked at Dally and shot him a tired smile, which still puzzled him. Why wasn't she screaming? Why wasn't she telling him that he wasn't good enough?

"At least she got to be home with her daddy today," Lucy said. "And Uncle Soda came by? She's a lucky baby."

If Dally had been a different kind of guy, he would have asked Lucy why she was being so cool about hearing that he had failed to take care of Elenore, just like he'd failed to take care of Violet when she was a little girl. It didn't make any sense. It made less sense when she pressed up in her shoes and kissed his cheek as though she were rewarding him for doing a terrible job. If he had been a different kind of guy, he would have asked her what the hell that was about.

But he wasn't a different kind of guy. He was still Dallas Winston. He still shrugged his shoulders and played it cool, like he wouldn't have cared either way about what Lucy had to say. It didn't make a difference, anyway. She knew he cared. She knew he cared, but she wasn't going to force him to admit it. That was the coolest thing about Lucy. She knew how to play.

"I'm gonna go grab you a Coke," he said. She was about done nursing Elenore, and the best part about that, for Lucy, was the chance to drink Coke again. By offering to grab one for her, Dally was practically asking her to marry _him _this time.

"Thanks," was about all Lucy could manage.

He gave her a curt nod, and then took off. She turned to Soda, who was looking at Elenore as she slept. He'd loved a lot of people before, but that was nothing compared to having a goddaughter. He wasn't even her kin (not really); yet, he knew he would have taken a bullet for her if he had to.

"I better go," he said. "When Elenore wakes up, tell her Uncle Soda loves her, and he'll see her soon, OK?"

"Wait," Lucy said. "Before you go, there's something I want to ask you about."

"I'm listenin'."

* * *

After making a series of jokes about not believing it, and how Dally must have been replaced with Bizarro Dally back in '65, Sadie and Johnny agreed to babysit Elenore on Lucy and Dally's second anniversary. Lucy figured that if they really were going to be next, they better get used to having a real-life baby around. Johnny looked like he'd seen a ghost when Lucy brought that up. She figured it was a talk she and Sadie would need to have another time.

On the night of their anniversary, Lucy and Dally lay in bed together, making intermittent jokes about how stupid they'd been to get married when they were eighteen – to get married at all. Lucy joked that she only married him so she'd get more access to his body. Dally said he knew that, and he didn't blame her. He was a ride he thought she wouldn't survive.

"And yet, I have," Lucy said. "What do you make of that?"

"It'll kill you one of these days."

"Hmm. And you're looking forward to that day, or…?"

"Shuddup."

Lucy grabbed Dally's hand and asked him the question that seared in her brain. It was the question she should have known better than to ask, but she couldn't help but ask it. She was always doing the stupid thing, anyway. What difference did it make?

"How come you never left?"

Dally rolled over further onto his back, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. Just when he thought she'd never make him talk about it. Lucy might have been a tough broad, but she was privileged enough to have a little softness, a little sentimentality. He didn't know if he could handle it.

"You know why," he said.

"Not really."

"Yeah, you do. You're just tryin' to get me to say it out loud. I ain't …"

He stopped. The truth was, he wasn't so sure anymore. He knew he loved her. There was no taking that back. He knew he loved Elenore, too. But he wasn't sure he'd have to keep quiet about it forever. Lucy had done enough to make him almost sure that it didn't matter if he wasn't always rough around her. He wasn't all the way there yet, and he knew he wouldn't be for a long time. _A long time_, however, no longer translated into _never._

"What if I dared you?"

Dally rolled back over to face Lucy. She was smirking, almost like she had one up on him. Most of the time, she did. He was man enough to admit it. This time, he'd have one up on her.

"I'll take your dare," he said. "But you didn't say I had to do it now."

"I'll revise."

"Too late, Bennet. I take your dare, but I take my time. You gotta live with that."

Then, Lucy rolled out of bed, leaving a mess of sheets and blankets on the bed. She was rifling through her drawer – the one that was mostly underwear, a few books, and Dally's blade. He sat up, watching her.

"What're you doin'?" he asked. "It looks dangerous."

"Since when do you care about dangerous?"

"Since right now."

Lucy grabbed a black box out of the drawer and slammed it shut. She got back into bed and threw the box on his lap.

"Happy anniversary, I guess."

He picked up the box and looked at it as if it were a bomb.

"What's this?"

"Well, generally, when someone gives you an unidentified box on a special occasion, you open it and find out that way."

He rolled his eyes and pulled the lid off. If it had been a different day, he probably would have given her hell for assuming he'd received many gifts in his life, but he didn't. He was too … stunned … by what he found in that box.

There were two rings – kind of silvery in color, one much smaller than the other. Dally furrowed his brow at them before turning the box around to face Lucy, who was watching him with clear nerves on her face.

"I'm gonna ask you one more time," he said. "What's this?"

"What's it look like? They're rings."

"I can see that. I wanna know why you gave 'em to me."

Lucy sighed. She was hoping she wouldn't have to put words to it. She was hoping he would just know. Then again, he probably did know. This was just his way of tricking her into saying what she needed to say for the both of them. She had to admire his cleverness. It was the reason why she'd wanted to screw with him in the first place.

"We've been married for two years," she said. "We have Elenore. And I figured after two years of being married to Dallas Winston without him going anywhere, I should probably put some sort of metaphor to it."

"Where'd you get 'em?"

"Soda knows how to make them. They say 'jack of all trades, master of none,' but I think he might actually be master of all."

Dally almost laughed. He pulled the smaller ring out of the box and looked at it.

"I don't s'pose this one's mine," he said.

"Not with that attitude, it's not."

"Come here."

He grabbed Lucy's hand and put the ring on for her. She picked up her hand, looking between the ring and him.

"How come you're not running now?" she asked.

Dally shrugged. He knew exactly why he wasn't running, but he was going to find a different way to say it if it was the last thing he did. That was the only thing he was good at – double talk.

"I don't know," he said. "Guess it's kinda nice you still got such high expectations for me. Guess it's nice that anyone gives a damn."

Lucy crawled over to him, straddled him over the blanket, and kissed him like only someone who gave a damn could ever kiss him. He wasn't going to tell her up front, but he appreciated it – the kissing and the giving a damn.

"I give more than one damn," she said. "Think I always have."

She looked down at the box. His ring was still in there, and it gave her a bit of pause to see it there. Maybe he didn't want to put it on?

"You gonna put that ring on yourself, or do you want me to do it for you?" she asked.

Dally reached over to the box and presented it to Lucy. He was smirking, and if he was smirking, it meant she wasn't in hot water.

"You better do it for me," he said. "You know, in case I fuck up or somethin'."

Lucy pulled the ring out of the box and took her husband's hand, which he willingly gave to her. It was still odd that he could do stuff like that because he wanted to, but she hoped he'd keep on wanting to. It was better that way – for everybody. She slid the ring on his finger and kissed him one more time.

"Now, speaking of fucking up," she said.

"Don't be cute."

But Lucy could be as cute she wanted. It didn't matter. Dally wasn't going anywhere. He thought, now, that he cared enough about himself to stay put. He thought, now, that he cared enough about somebody else to stay put for her … for both of them. Better to get his head blown off at home with Lucy than somewhere else. At least Lucy gave a damn. If she could spare a few damns for him, he could do it for her. After all, he knew how to play.

* * *

By the end of March, Dally was still around. He still hadn't thought about leaving. He hadn't even so much as swiped anything from the store where he still worked. As it turned out, being Elenore's father was an even bigger distraction than being Lucy's husband. Any time he wanted to go out, it turned out that Elenore would rather him stay in. It got to the point that any time she'd see him throw on his jacket, she'd cry and cry until he took it off and sat back down. Lucy had to take her into the bathroom and hide for a few minutes any time Dally had to go to work so she wouldn't see and keep him from going. She was a smart kid, that Elenore.

Lucy was, somehow, still on track to graduate in 1970. She hadn't failed astronomy during that fall semester of her second year, but when she brought home a _B _minus, she'd convinced herself that she was a failure. Elenore had seen her crying, but instead of crying right along with her (like babies were supposed to do), she smiled at her mama. Dally said that it was proof she was his kid – laughing at somebody else's pain. Lucy shook her head and said it was proof that she was paying attention to Sadie and Soda when they babysat her – knowing exactly how to cheer somebody up when they were feeling low.

Apart from her own folks, Sadie was Elenore's favorite person in the whole world. Sadie was the first person to let Elenore try ice cream, and from then on, they were thick as thieves. On that day – the last day in March of 1968 – Lucy and Dally would have had Sadie look after Elenore, but she was otherwise occupied, having gotten married earlier that day. So, Lucy and Dally took Elenore to the Curtis place because if there was one thing Elenore liked almost as much as spending the day with Aunt Sadie, it was spending the day with Uncle Soda.

Elenore was nearly a year old now, and she could say a few words, including the most important ones: Mama, Daddy, Sadie, and Soda. They were the four words she said most often, though she knew who each of them were, respectively. She never got them confused. There was nothing quite as happy as when Elenore would look at one of her parents or her godparents and chirp out their name. Even Dally almost smiled when she called him _Daddy_. After nearly a year, it almost felt like he'd earned the name.

So, when Lucy and Dally knocked on the Curtises' front porch, and Elenore greeted Soda with his own name in her sweet little voice, he knew he was little more than a poor sucker.

"Hey, baby girl," he said. He looked up at her folks. "What's up?"

"Elenore's been saying your name over and over since city hall," Lucy said. "We figured she wanted to see you a little bit more, if that's OK?"

Soda smiled at Elenore one more time, then looked suspiciously at her folks again.

"You just _really _wanna be alone, don't ya?"

"It's been a _week and a half_," Lucy said.

"Dammit, Lucy, you don't gotta tell him that."

"Well, when it's been a week and a half, it's almost worth bragging about."

"You sure _bragging_'s the right word?"

Soda chuckled to himself and grabbed Elenore out of Lucy's arms. She was all too happy to go with him. At eleven months old, she knew that if Soda was babysitting, she got to have chocolate. That was worth being away from Mama for a little while.

"Thanks," Lucy said. "We really shouldn't be too long."

"You're just _tryin_' to make me look like some sorta wimp, ain't you?"

Lucy ignored Dally, waved goodbye to Elenore, and then took the same hand to walk back down the street with her husband. Soda laughed again, closing the door behind them and putting Elenore down on the couch.

"You sure got some funny folks, baby girl," he said. "You love 'em, though, don't ya?"

"Yes!"

He smiled. A couple months earlier, Elenore had figured out that people often responded to questions with the word _yes_. This was all too fun for her aunts and uncles, who asked her things like, "Do ya want a beer?" and "Do ya got a blade, Elenore?" Katie Mathews got a letter from Two-Bit asking Katie to ask Elenore if she ever shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Dally rolled his eyes and wondered who was making Two-Bit listen to country music over there. Elenore, of course, said yes. Two-Bit would be back in a few months, which Soda was glad about. He hated to think of him over there.

"Yeah, kid," Soda said. "I love 'em too. Just don't tell your daddy I said so, OK? He'd skin me alive."

"Yes!"

Soda laughed one more time. He'd known it since Lucy asked him to be Elenore's godfather, but every minute he spent with her, the truer it became. If somebody asked him to, he'd take a bullet for that kid. Maybe she and Lucy weren't his kin, but they were as good as. He had Sadie to thank for that – maybe Dally, too, when he thought about it.

He heard a clinking noise from the front porch. Then, there were footsteps. It would have had him on edge if it hadn't been the right time of day. Soda picked up Elenore and took her to the door with him.

"Mail's here."

* * *

**And that was 'Impatience and Impulsivity.' Sorry about that ending!**

**I had no idea this was going to be the last chapter, but after Elenore was born, I figured I'd resolved most things narratively. And, as I've mentioned, there will be plenty of companion pieces that fill in the narrative and chronological gaps of this one. 'Impatience and Impulsivity' is the how of things – how Elenore was born, how Dally chose to stay, and how Soda fits into my Core Four.**

**I'm (ideally) going to be focusing on some articles of my own throughout the month of May, but that doesn't mean I'll go completely inactive. I've got some stuff in the works, including the third multi-chap fic in the 'Arrogance and Aggression' universe. I won't drop the title yet, but it CAN be found somewhere in this story. Sometimes, I like to be vague.**

**Hinton owns **_**The Outsiders**_**. "Goodnight, Irene" is a song from 1950, popularly recorded by Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra. It is exactly the kind of song that could put Dallas Winston's daughter to sleep.**


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